Defying Stars
by Littlestladybug
Summary: Meet Erin Harper. SHIELD doesn't even know she exists, and a chance meeting with an injured, mortal demigod changes all that. Suddenly she's an Avenger, and every villain on Earth is looking for her. And it may or may not have a lot to do with something that is definitely not of Earth.
1. Chapter 1

**Hi everybody!**

 **This is story number four! I can't believe that I have written this is the closest to a finished story that I have, so updates will be a lot less spaced out. I will aim for a chapter a fortnight, which will hopefully happen until I finish the story.**

 **This story was inspired by the cartoon TV series 'Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes'. I started writing this story back when I was fourteen, but I never properly developed the plot or the characters until now. I'm currently going through the scribbles in a notebook that fourteen-year-old me wrote a few years ago.**

 **Anyway, if you like this story at all (or have any kind of constructive criticism), leave me a review and let me know what you think!**

 **On with the story!**

 **~O~O~O~O~**

Erin Harper was in a hurry, which for New York wasn't really out of place, but the girl herself was.

Her long, chocolate hair hung past her shoulders, a curtain that hid her from the rest of the world. It was straight, and was loosely braided back from her face and covered by a beanie.

Erin's small frame was bundled up in multiple thin layers of clothing that passed as 'winter clothing' at the orphanage she was in. The overcoat was barely able to be classed as a coat and was instead more of a scrap of clothing. It made her slim, willowy figure look almost average sized. She pulled it closer to her in a vain attempt to keep the howling, freezing cold wind that rushed between the buildings with the force of a small hurricane and nipped at her fingers and nose, out and away from her body. Most of the wise people had stayed indoors, and the city that never slept was practically deserted.

Her green eyes- like emeralds- sparkled in the dim light that New York's winter provided. It was the look in her eyes- not cold but warm, soft and inviting- that made her different. She always got the crazy customers, fellow passengers or the strangers that tried to give her their life story. To be honest she simply wasn't interested, but she was polite and knew that venting sometimes helped.

"Hey!" yelled a voice behind Erin as she walked down the pavement. She ignored it, knowing that it was probably wise to not acknowledge it. While most people weren't stupid enough to try kidnapping or mugging someone in such a public place and during broad daylight, there were still that select few who tried their luck. And Erin had no desire to be one of their intended victims.

"Hey!" the voice shouted again. Normally, if they shouted again, it was wise to do a check and work out whether running was the best option.

She turned around to see a middle-aged man with blonde hair that was tied back in a ponytail. His muscles bulged from beneath the tight grey and black t-shirt he wore. He was limping, and from one look at his injured leg, and the way he was gingerly, quite tentatively putting weight on it, Erin knew it was broken.

"Can you help me?" he asked pleadingly, wincing as he took yet another step forward. "I have been separated from my comrades, and I fear that they may be in need of my assistance."

"I don't know you," Erin said, backing away slowly, her hands out in front of her as if she was dealing with one of the men at work who had taken a substance that was _definitely_ banned nationwide. There were three main rules: keep hands visible, speak calmly, and get back-up as soon as possible.

Her green beanie slipped to reveal a pointed ear- something that every single one of her beanies hid from the general public- as she took a step backwards. The man noticed, but did not comment.

"Please," the man begged. "I need to get back to my friends, and the sooner, the better."

From behind the block of buildings there came a roar. A roar so blood-curdling, so chilling and terrifying, that Erin jumped and spun in the direction of the sound. Several passers-by looked in the direction of the sound and then went back to whatever it was they were doing.

"What was that?" Erin squeaked, paling considerably.

"My brother," the man murmured softly, as if unwilling for Erin to hear it, before straightening up and looking at her. "That is what I am supposed to be helping my team to fight." He said it wearily, as if that was the message he had been trying to convey, and Erin had simply _not_ got it.

Erin sighed and checked her watch before she reached out and pulled the man's arm around her shoulders to support him. She was going to be so late back to the orphanage that Miss Hannah might just kill her this time. Erin had been on her tenth final warning. Number eleven might end up becoming the one straw that broke the camels back.

In one hand, the man held a hammer- a hammer that you could buy from any hardware store, and judging by the way he held it, it was his weapon of choice. In his other hand he held a broken wooden post, which he used as a cane.

"I'm Erin," Erin said.

"Thor," the man said. Now, if she hadn't thought he was crazy by now, that would have been the clincher. It would also explain the hammer.

Erin burst out laughing, which was also not a good idea to do to a crazy person, lest they try to kill whoever was stupid enough to insult them.

"No, what's your real name?" she asked, wiping a tear from her eye. Yes, she had been laughing so hard that she cried. So what?

"That is my real name. Thor," Thor said adamantly.

"Well then, _Thor_. Aren't you supposed to be an indestructible god, not a mortal human with a broken leg?"

"I used to be," Thor replied sarcastically.

"What happened?"

"The Enchantress happened," Thor said bitterly, wincing in pain as they continued walking down the street. This was his second time he had been stripped of his powers and made mortal again. And he hated it, the weakness of his mortal frame as well as the lack of his precious Mjolnir. Never again would he laugh at the mortals and their perception of pain. Nor would he laugh at Clint- not that he did after the incident involving a very pranked-up Clint and twenty cream pies made 'especially' for Thor. "She stripped my entire team of their powers."

"So, powers are real? As in, superheroes actually are in New York? Huh, I thought I was the only… _never mind_ ," Erin trailed off, looking decidedly nervous as she realised that Thor was watching her with interest.

Thor noted this reaction and stored it away in a corner of his mind, to be reviewed at a later time.

"Who is your team?" Erin asked, hurriedly changing the subject as they began to limp run.

"The team of which I and my friends make up is the Avengers," Thor replied.

Rather than question this, Erin accepted it with a nod of her head.

"It makes sense," she said, and then- a little cheekily- added: "Although you could just be delusional."

"I assure you, I am not delusional!" Thor said defensively. And loudly. Enough to make several heads turn in their direction.

All around them, people were whispering.

"That can't be Thor, can it?" Erin heard one ask.

"Who's the girl holding him up?" somebody else asked.

"It looks like Thor." That was said a little louder, which garnered more attention than either of the people in question wanted.

"Is the girl new to the team? SHIELD mentioned a few more to become the Avengers. Has to be one of those teenage freaks we were reading about the other day."

Thor turned to Erin, noting the sad expression on her face. "Ignore them," he told her. "They do not know what they are talking about."

"Thor, I love you!" a teenage girls voice screamed from the fray. Both Erin and Thor began walking a lot faster.

"We're almost there," Erin informed Thor. "It doesn't look like things went very well. Some scrawny guy with a shield is barely holding whoever you're fighting back, and the rest of your friends- if they look like they grew up in a costume shop- are lying on the ground. Either they're really good at playing dead, or they're seriously injured."

"I must help them!" Thor cried. The pair began to run, Erin holding Thor up with a surprising amount of strength.

They eventually made it to the end of the street, where the crashes of a building being torn apart, glass shattering as it hit the road, could be heard. Civilians fled the buildings and screamed as they dodged the falling bits of rubble. Car alarms wailed as they were squashed by chunks of debris, a large desk narrowly missing the prone form of Captain America, a man that Erin recognised from the comic books that were at the orphanage.

"Stay here," Thor murmured to Erin as she stood in the rubble, staring at the destruction caused by the massive shape that was standing in the middle of the street. The dust in the air helped to hide it from view, so that the only thing Erin could see was its silhouette.

"Loki, leave my friends alone!" Thor yelled as he limped onto the road.

 _Loki?_ Erin thought as she stared at the shadow of the… thing. The guy who had tried to take over the world was back on Earth? Hadn't he gone back to wherever the hell it was Thor was from to receive punishment of some kind? The megalomaniac was the reason that so many new faces had arrived at the orphanage, and why there were so many nights she had a small child- or even three- sharing a bed with her, too scared to sleep because of the nightmares that stemmed from the Battle of New York.

The monster robot thing- which Erin could see now that she'd uncovered her eyes and some of the dust had now settled- stood several storeys tall. It was made of a shiny silver metal, and had purple eyes that glowed menacingly. They narrowed as they saw Thor, and the robot picked up a street sign and held it in its monstrous hands.

"Bring it, dear brother," it growled, its voice completely devoid of emotion.

Thor limp-ran towards it, screaming something that Erin could only assume was a battle cry, or a lot of Asgardian curse words. Loki- the monster robot- swung the sign and caught the god in the side.

Thor went flying into the building beside him, the action accompanied by the sickening crack of bones shattering and breaking. His bones. The god slowly slid down to the ground and remained slumped against the brick wall, blood trickling from his leg and arms as pieces of glass and debris shone from where they were embedded in his skin. She couldn't stand it any longer- she had to do something. Otherwise many people would die.

Erin ran to him, checking to ascertain that the robot was looking at something other than her as she ran across the cracked asphalt, vaulting over a burning car and a chunk of concrete with metal rods sticking out of it. Thor was unconscious, and was in no means able to fight.

"Thor?" she asked urgently, shaking him roughly. Green light began to pulse beneath her skin, but she restrained herself, proud of the achievement. Thor cracked his eyes open to see Erin, who stood in front of him, her eyes widened by fear. Fear for _him,_ and the rest of the people surrounding them both.

"You have to fight him," Thor muttered, looking at Loki in the Destroyer and then to the scared teenager who was watching him cautiously.

She chuckled. "Oh yeah? And with what?"

But Thor had already fallen unconscious, _again_ , which meant that Erin was left to work with what she had.

She spotted red, blue and white protruding from the rubble, alongside a skinny blonde man with virtually no muscle tone. The man had a kind face, which made Erin ignore the rest of him as she dragged him to safety, placing him beside a man with a bow and quiver full of arrows.

"Move, and your life shall be spared," a gravelly voice behind her said. Erin froze, rotating her shoulders and straightening her spine. Her hands curled into fists as she spun around to see the robot thing staring at her, a frown line evident in the polished metal.

"What happens to these people if I do?" she asked, already knowing the answer, but using all the time she had to locate a weapon for herself. She tried to pick out any weak spots in the armour that she could exploit.

"They die. If you don't, you shall die, and then these people will follow," the robot replied coldly.

Erin shook her head. "That is unacceptable."

She reached out and grabbed the nearest object she could probably fight with. Her fingertips touched cool metal as she looked down to see Captain America's shield there. She hoisted it up over her arm, ensuring it was strapped correctly to her forearm before she looked defiantly up at the robot.

"You will not hurt these people."

 **~O~O~O~O~**

 **I really like Erin as a character, so I hope you guys do too! Let me know what you think by leaving a review!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Okay, so this has been put up because: a) I have decoded another chapter of my scribbles, and b)I got two chapter reviews! Thank you Leopard Queen and Darth Becky 726! You both actually made my day!**

 **If you like this story or have some feedback for me, leave a review. I really do appreciate them.**

 **Without further ado, here is chapter 2!**

 **~O~O~O~**

"You dare stand in the way of Loki, mortal scum?" Loki bellowed, the noise sending a shockwave through the street, uprooting the trees along the side of the road, as well as the cars that had remained virtually unharmed the entire time that the fight had been going on for. Erin dropped into a defensive stance, the shield covering her wispy frame. The robot things sent a blast of plasma at her, the superheated energy ricocheting off the shield and into a nearby apartment. The apartment burst into flames and then exploded, a smoke alarm beeping frantically as it landed in front of Erin. She kicked it away, grimacing, before she glared at Loki-robot. She was grateful that the people who had lived in this street were wise enough to have left when the fight began.

"Bring it on," she said, her voice dangerously low.

Loki rushed at her, letting out a primal cry that sounded suspiciously like the one that Thor had been yelling. She jumped out of his way at the last possible second, allowing the robot to go ploughing into the building behind her. She launched herself up from the broken road onto the arm of her giant adversary, making deep gashes along its forearms as she ran to its shoulders, dodging its flailing arms.

With one clean swiping motion of the indestructible shield she cut the arm off. She made several gashes along the body of the robot, trying to inflict as much damage as she possibly could.

She leapt up to its head, pulling the arm with the shield attached back, in an attempt to inflict the most damage.

"No!" Thor gasped, drifting back into consciousness to see the teenage girl perched on the Destroyer, ready to deliver the final blow. "Aim for the feet. It'll buy you more time." He did not want to mention that if the robot died with Loki's mind still controlling it, there was a strong possibility that his brother would die along with it.

This two second distraction was all it took to give Loki a chance to flick Erin off his shoulder. She went flying into the unforgiving office block beside her, and crumpled to the ground, various bones broken as well as blood pouring from a gash above her head. She felt her power zip in and begin to heal it.

She watched as sparks healed her, spreading out from where her now non-broken arm touched the other pain inflicted areas, returning them to their original condition with the faint tingling in her bones the only evidence that there had been serious injuries there moments before.

Loki was advancing toward Thor. Erin grabbed the shield and flung it as hard as she could at Loki. It sliced through the metal joins that kept the feet attached to the legs. Loki dropped onto two stumps. Erin stared at the shield strapped to her arm in amazement and a profound appreciation, before turning her attention to the man lying on the pavement behind her. He would know how to defeat Loki, know his weaknesses and the Destroyer's strengths.

Erin ran to him and placed a hand on Thor's chest. "Heal," she whispered, green light flowing out from where her hand was. She knew that she didn't need to say the words to heal him, but it helped her mind concentrate on where- and on what- she was supposed to be focusing her energy. As soon as it had contact with Thor's skin it turned gold. Which was new.

It healed the upper parts of his body first- the bones knitting back together and the blood retreating from his cuts as the skin healed over. Loki swiped Erin away from Thor before she had a chance to heal his leg- the most important part of his anatomy, as he needed full use of it to defeat the Destroyer.

She tumbled over to the other side of the road, her newly healed frame cracking as it hit the pavement. Pain spiked through her as she felt her powers begin to tingle and heal her body.

A hand reached out and pulled her behind the rubble, saving her as a plasma blast hit the ground she had been lying on just moments before.

"Thanks," she puffed, looking up at the man with the kind face who had rescued her.

"You're welcome," he said, then motioned to the shield on her arm. "Can I have my shield back now?"

She grinned. "But it's such a good accessory! Plus, I look good with it!"

The man chuckled. "It _does_ suit you. However, it's _my_ accessory, and I would like it back."

"Fine. If you _have_ to," Erin muttered, unstrapping the shield and passing it to him.

"Of course I have to," he replied as he placed it back on his own arm. "It's part of my job description."

"You have to fight aliens and robot monster things just so you can get paid?" Erin asked him. He outright laughed at that.

"It's for the good of the civilians. I'm Steve, by the way."

"Erin," she said, shaking his outstretched hand. "I don't suppose you know why the crazy guy who tried to take over the world is back on the planet?"

"He's teamed up with somebody powerful- she stripped us of our powers, and I think he's here to exact revenge on Thor and try to take us over again."

" _Great_ ," Erin sighed, her eyes on Thor as he struggled to stand up, arms flailing as he fell on his face multiple times. "Is he going to-?"

"Loki," Thor said as he limped up to the giant monster standing in the middle of the street. "Leave these people at once."

"He is," Erin groaned. "I cannot even believe that he would!"

Steve looked at her quizzically, watching as she motioned to the confrontation the brothers were having in the middle of the street. "He's creating a distraction, but it's not a great one. We need to take advantage of it."

"I cannot leave until you are dead, dear brother," Loki purred. And was it possible that the robot had a smirk on its face? Erin felt the urge to wipe it off, preferably with some giant, quite destructive, weapon.

"Well, you will have to wait a long time. We mortals will always fight when there is hope. It's the very thing that keeps us human," Thor said defiantly.

"I told him that," Steve said proudly. Erin patted him on the arm as they moved into position behind the robot. The rest of the team that they had awakened fell in beside them.

Above them, a storm was brewing. Thunder crackled as Thor held his face up to the sky, a huge grin on his face. A flash of light seemingly appeared from the heavens and hit the various members of the Avengers, blinding Erin temporarily. In an instant, Thor was standing tall and proud with his hammer. Ironman no longer looked like the saucepan man. Steve was no longer scrawny. The Avengers had all had their powers returned, much to Loki's chagrin. He screamed in frustration as Thor slammed his hammer into him.

"Avengers, assemble," Ironman said.

Erin sniggered at the corny line, but this went unnoticed by the superheroes standing beside her.

All at once, the team- plus Erin- hit Loki with all the power they could muster. Ironman shot blue light at the robot, Thor summoned lightning with Mjolnir and aimed it at Loki, Steve threw his shield with as much power as he possibly could, the two assassins in black shot bullets and exploding arrows at Loki, and Erin sent as much energy as she could muster at the robot.

The monster fell back onto the road with a crash, a purple cloud billowing out of its mouth. The cloud dissipated in the air. _That must have been his soul_ , Erin thought.

Thor hobbled over to Erin, wincing. In his amazing transformation to his Asgardian form his leg had not healed, meaning that Erin was required to give it a once-over. Steve looked at the tenderness on her face as she checked him over for any more injuries and looked them all over.

Thor winced. "Thank you for saving my life," he said, watching her assess Steve. She gently touched his shoulder, and the green light spread along his body searchingly.

She reached out for Thor, who could almost feel the bones fusing together, and his leg felt as good as new as soon as the light had faded.

She gave him a smile, and then looked at her watch.

"Oh no!" she exclaimed, on the verge of panic as she looked around for an exit. "Miss Hannah's going to kill me! And by that, I mean actual murder!"

"Wait, what's going…?" Steve began, watching her frantic eyes and terrified body language. He briefly wondered what life in the foster care system had to be like to scare a woman who had just battled an Asgardian war machine.

"I have to go," Erin blurted out, tearing herself away from the very confused-looking Avengers and ducking into an alleyway- knocking over several trash cans as she went. She cursed and continued running. Several homeless men tried to stop her, but she palmed them away, shouting all of the really bad swear words she knew at them.

Ironman chuckled. "Well, I like her. I wonder if SHIELD knows about the teenage mystery."

"I'll go after her," Captain America- Steve- volunteered, before anyone else reacted to Erin's sudden disappearance. Part of him wanted to follow her to make sure she was okay, and the other part of him wanted to follow her because of the strength of her that he had just witnessed. She had seen him pre-serum, and yet she had still treated him the same as she had to the rest of his team and him post-serum. She intrigued him, for lack of a better word.

He picked his shield up from where Erin had dropped it- over by an adequately destroyed building. His shield had left a massive dent in the concrete, and the metal arm of Loki's monster, which the SHIELD operatives were in the middle of clearing up, lay draped across the road. He then proceeded to run into the alley that Erin had disappeared into- dodging several downed trash cans. Alley cats and rats had already begun foraging for food, and he shook his head. The state of the city was worse than it had been back in his day. The government chose to hide the un-shiny, un-new things from the rest of the city in dark, dank alleyways. The alleyways he used to get beaten up in back before the serum were at least clean.

When he emerged from it into sunlight and onto a busy street- full of traffic and people- he saw a green beanie-clad figure going up the stairs and to the front double doors of "Miss Hannah's Girls Home". The figure looked around briefly to check whether or not she had been followed before she slipped through the doors.

"She's not on the database, Steve," Ironman said. "I hacked into SHIELD, and she isn't even on their watch list."

"Do you want to add something to that, Natasha?" Steve heard Dr Banner's voice on one of the earpieces.

"I have never seen her before. Even the lowest SHIELD agents know about the Avengers Initiative," Natasha replied. Judging by her tone, she and Clint had been having one of their eye contact conversations while Natasha had been having a glaring contest with Dr Banner. Again. For the sixth time that week.

"Yeah, so they know how to take us down," Banner grumbled eventually, which indicated that the assassin had won the staring contest.

"So, what is the point of telling me she's not on the system, Stark?" Steve asked.

"Because, dear Capsicle, it means that she's not known to SHIELD, which means that we knew about her before Fury did, which makes us better than him."

"I'm sorry, but what relevance does this have to the conversation?" Hawkeye interrupted.

"When does it not?" Stark replied cattily.

The pair began bickering, and Steve sighed. Stark and Agent Barton were good friends, they just tended to ignore each other for short periods of time and have arguments over the most trivial things. They were both pranksters, so there was an almost constant prank war going on at the Avengers Tower. This ended up giving them both a healthy portion of humble pie, and helped them each earn respect from the other.

The captain pressed a finger to his earpiece. "Enough! I found her, Tony. She's an orphan at 'Miss Hannah's Girls Home'. Meet me over here, pronto."

"We're on our way," Ironman said. He looked around at his team who were trying to aid in the clean-up, but were, in reality, just making the mess worse. The SHIELD agents kept shooing them away as they began their long and tedious clean up. The only one who effectively helped with the clean-up was Steve, and Thor was only useful when there was rubble. Which at the moment, there wasn't any just lying around. The SHIELD agents hauled the remaining bits of scrap metal that formed the Destroyer into one of their non-descript black vans, before disappearing and leaving the street looking almost untouched as it was before the attack.

"Come on team. He found her. And now we're going to go and get her before Nick finds her."

 **~O~O~O~**

 **Alright, so that was chapter two! Let me know what you think by leaving a review! Next chapter should be up soon.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey all! Here is Chapter 3. Thanks to Jerry Skeleton (I like that she met Thor first too- he's pretty cool and I feel like he'd be interesting to deal with whilst de-powered) and Leopard Queen (again! yay!) for leaving reviews! I really do appreciate it.**

 **So, without further ado, here is Chapter 3! Leave a review if you like (constructive criticism is very much okay and encouraged).**

 **~O~O~O~O~**

Erin opened the doors to Miss Hannah's and crept in. The posters of smiling orphans, long faded from the intense lighting that went on in the dingy room, looked oddly creepy in the dusk light. The clock on the wall confirmed she was two minutes late. To her right, Miss Hannah's mahogany panelled office closed off a six square metre space reserved for telling off misbehaving kids, or charming unsuspecting new parents. Now, if she could get past Miss Hannah's office, she'd be right.

She pushed a chair out of her way with a deafening screech, and was almost at the dining hall doors when…

"Erin Harper!"

Erin froze, hoping that if she didn't move a muscle that Miss Hannah would think she was hearing things. It didn't work. Miss Hannah wrenched open the door, wisps of hair shaken loose from her tight silver bun and her jowly face scowling at Erin, who self-consciously tucked her ears beneath her beanie.

"Get in my office! RIGHT THIS MOMENT!"

 **~O~O~O~O~**

Ironman, Black Widow, Dr Banner, Captain America, Thor and Hawkeye were standing outside Miss Hannah's. This garnered some weird looks from the people passing by, which every member except for Tony dutifully ignored. Stark chose instead to inform everybody who paused, that he was Ironman.

"You all ready?" Black Widow asked, holstering her gun and moving toward the front of the group with Stark.

Everybody nodded. They went up the stairs and opened the double doors.

 **~O~O~O~O~**

Erin pushed through the dining hall doors, silently fuming. She had been lucky to escape with a warning from Miss Hannah. Now, if she could escape Macey, her day would be perfect.

Macey was a thorn in Erin's side. She was a bully, which usually meant that Erin had to rescue and protect one child all the time. She was Miss Hannah's favourite, meaning she always got what she wanted, like new clothes and the latest technology. Macey was the queen bee at the school they all went to, and most of the girls in their year followed Macey around like lost puppies most of the time.

Macey- her sworn enemy- looked up and sneered when she caught sight of Erin. "Hey look! It's the super freak!"

It was probably the worst insult she'd ever been given, but the reason she'd been called it by Macey was because Macey thought there was something weird about Erin, and had once caught her using her powers to heal a cut she'd got in the kitchen. Ever since then, she'd been desperate to prove to the rest of the orphanage that Erin was a freak.

"Ha-ha. Very funny Macey," Erin said drolly, rolling her eyes. Every night the insults were the same. The lack of imagination was kind of worrying, if she was going to be honest.

Tally, Macey's best friend, pulled off Erin's beanie and threw it to Macey, who dangled it in front of Erin's face. She jumped for it, but Macey was a giant compared to her- the slightly older girl towering over Erin even without the high heels that she usually wore to school- and she had no chance of getting it back any time soon.

The whole hall 'oohed' as Erin's pointed ears were shown to the cluster of girls. The ears were a source of shame- the only physical part of her that screamed 'not human!', and was the reason she had been in the foster care system for as long as she had, even though Miss Hannah had tried to pass them off as being a genetic mutation. Nobody wanted a freak.

"Give it back Macey!" Erin jumped up on the bench to gain a height advantage.

"Do you want to fight for it?" Macey asked, jumping up onto the bench as well. Her hands balled into fists. She loved to fight, and Erin knew it. She had several bruises from where Macey had hit her. She had to selectively not heal those ones, which was more painful than most would think, as Erin was constantly locked in a battle with her own body. But it was a better alternative than what would happen if someone found out. She couldn't begin to imagine what Macey would do if she knew Erin could heal herself or others.

"No, I want my beanie back," Erin stated, through gritted teeth. "I don't really want to fight with you over it."

She had become surprisingly good at fighting in her eighteen years at the orphanage. The other day, a kid had tried to shove her into a locker. Without really reacting- Macey and her cronies tried this multiple times a day- so really, Erin had done it on instinct, thinking it was an orphanage kid who knew how to fight back- she had shoved him back and onto the floor.

The senior guy that she had grasped around the back of the neck and smashed face-first into a locker, breaking his nose and slicing his forehead open had been carted off in an ambulance and needed a rumoured twenty-four stitches. Apparently, it would scar.

Macey hit her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her temporarily. Without thinking, Erin punched her in the face, bones cracking beneath her hand as Macey went flying off the table and crumpled on the hard linoleum floor that was the dining hall. The silence that followed her fall was deafening, ringing in Erin's ears. Macey scrambled to her knees, glaring at Erin as she did so.

"You're going to regret that, super freak," she hissed, nodding to Tally, who took that to be her clue.

"Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight!" she shouted, more voices joining in as the girls circled each other cautiously. The crowd began to hit the tables with their forks and crockery, creating a ruckus that would rival New York on a loud day.

Macey held her hand out to Tally, blood dripping from her nose as her friend passed her a fork. She tried to stab Erin with it, but Erin grabbed it, throwing it back into the crowd, glaring at Macey.

"Hands only," she said, her voice low. "You could kill someone with a fork."

Macey let out an evil chuckle, causing panic to spike through Erin's chest. "Oh, super freak! What makes you think that this was a fight you would survive?"

Erin looked at Macey quizzically. "Killing someone would make you as bad as your parents, Macey," she said softly.

"How do you know about my parents?" she shrieked indignantly.

Erin smirked and tapped the side of her head. With her powers, she knew things that others thought she didn't. For a moment, she appreciated it, being the superior one, the king of the mountain.

Then Macey narrowed her eyes, reached out to Tally and picked up a carving knife.

And it went downhill from there.

 **~O~O~O~O~**

"She's eating at the moment, but I guess we can drag her away," Miss Hannah said as she waddled down the hallway, leading them into the dining hall. It wasn't every day that superheroes walked into an orphanage and asked to talk to one of the kids, who was, admittedly, kind of weird. If it was for a superhero thing, then that meant that there was one less mouth to feed, which Miss Hannah desperately needed.

There was a chant coming from behind the door. Miss Hannah turned around and smiled at the people behind her as if to say: 'I'm sure it's nothing'. Judging by the aggressive yells from inside the dining hall, there was definitely something going on behind them. Stark raised an eyebrow at the orphanage manager, who winced.

Miss Hannah opened the doors to reveal two girls fighting on top of a bench, with the other girls surrounding the pair, chanting loudly.

They all recognised the girl with the green beanie who slapped the fork away from another girls hands.

"Hands only!" she shouted, and they watched the panic on her face as another girl- the one threatening her- held up a knife that she had retrieved from the crowd.

"Is this a normal occurrence here?" Tony said, looking at Miss Hannah's lack of response and noting it down for the next board meeting he attended that involved orphanages.

His comment spurred Miss Hannah into action.

"Erin Harper and Macey Griffiths! Get off the benches now!" Miss Hannah screamed as Erin ducked and lunged for something one of the younger children had hidden in their hands. A fork- slightly bent and quite blunt from its use over the years.

She scrambled away from her attacker on her hands and knees, as the fork slipped out of her grip and fell onto the floor with a clatter. Macey grinned, and her eyes lit up. She knew she had won and now Erin was in for a good, classic monologue. Hawkeye winced and covered his eyes, mainly from the sheer annoyance of monologues. Loki had given enough of them during the battle of New York, and he was irritating, to say the least.

Tony saw the glint of metal in the other girl's hand, and instantly slipped his face mask down, holding a hand out, his repulsors whining as they powered up.

A girl tackled Erin from behind and pinned her hands and feet to the table as Macey chuckled evilly, slowly approaching with the knife in her hand, the light glinting off it as she lowered herself to Erin's level. Erin threw her head back in a silent acknowledgement of the pain Macey had inflicted by twisting the blade deeply into her thigh. Hawkeye noted how she had a steely glint in her eyes that told him that she would not let Macey have the satisfaction of hearing her vocalise her pain.

"She'll kill her!" Tony gasped, watching as Erin struggled, the green glinting beneath her hands as she restrained herself. It occurred to him that she as most likely did not want to hurt anyone there.

There was a gasp from the crowd as Macey levelled a carving knife with Erin's throat.

"Die, super freak," she growled.

Erin closed her eyes and waited for the death blow.

 **~O~O~O~O~**

A pulse of blue energy flew across the room and knocked the knife out of Macey's hand. It went spinning in the air and ended up embedding itself in the kitchen door. The cook looked at it in alarm. Her head had been there moments ago, right before she had heard the chanting for the fight and hid in the kitchens like she had in previous fights.

"I'm sorry ladies," Ironman declared, his hand outstretched toward the girls before he lowered it. "But there will be no murdering here today."

An excited murmur rippled through the girls. Nothing this exciting or dramatic as today had ever happened at the Home.

Erin looked at the Avengers from where she was pinned to the floor, Macey's boot still over her thigh. As Macey looked at the superheroes grimly staring at her, she made a show of removing the boot from where it was on her wound and moving away. Erin slowly got up and hobbled over to the Avengers, her power stemming the flow of blood as she took hesitant steps forward. The crowd of girls parted for her as she walked over to Miss Hannah.

"Erin, you're coming with us," Dr Banner announced, beckoning for her to step forward. She smiled hesitantly at him, wincing as she took yet another step forward to meet them.

"Here, have your beanie, super freak," Macey snarled venomously, tossing the bright green beanie to Erin.

She tugged it over her ears, quickly checking that none of the Avengers had seen her pointed ears.

One of the younger girls, who looked to be no older than five, came and hugged Erin's waist tightly. Erin placed a hand on top of the girls head and stroked her hair gently as she began to cry.

"Don't go, Erin!" the little girl begged. "What if Macey tries to hurt me again?"

Hawkeye bristled at this comment. How much pain had this Macey character put the occupants of the house through?

"Lara, do you remember your self-defence?" she asked suddenly. It struck Tony as strange that there was need for six-year-olds to know self-defence, but he didn't really question it.

The girl nodded tearfully, staring up at Erin, who squatted down to her level and drew her in for a hug. It occurred to Captain America then that the younger girls saw Erin as a mother figure, probably the only one they had ever had. It made him kind of sad, but watching her with the girls made him smile.

"Good. Teach it to any of the other girls who might need to know it. Macey won't be able to hurt you anymore," Erin said, giving Macey an ice-cold glare. Macey, who had opened her mouth to sling a volley of insults at Erin and the young girls, backed down. Though it could have been because Thor, the scary demigod with the hammer that could control thunder and lightning had his arms folded and was glaring at her whilst tapping his foot, a peeved Bruce Banner beside him. Either way, Macey shut up quite quickly.

"I promise I'll visit as often as I can," Erin said, hugging Lara- who had now attached herself to Erin's leg- tightly.

"Please don't go!" another young girl piped up. "We need you!"

A small group of the littler girls rushed forward and hugged Erin as tightly as they could. In fact, she was almost knocked over by the sheer force of thirty small girls rushing her all at once, each desperate for a hug with her. When they had let go, and she was walking to the front, Lara tugged on her hand. Erin turned around to see them all lined up solemnly as she looked over to the Avengers, tears streaming down her face. It was clear she didn't want to leave them here alone. Judging by what the team had just seen, they would have to agree that her worry was justifiable.

She gave them each a hug and whispered something to them, wiping their tears away and kissing their foreheads tenderly, like a mother would to a child.

"You'll be okay, Raina," Steve heard her tell one little girl. The girl- who couldn't be more than six- had been lying on the floor, curled up in a ball with her face screwed up as tears streamed down her face. "Lara will look after you now."

 _She spends the night with me most nights- Loki killed her family right in front of her, and she has nightmares about it_ , she sent to Steve, who gave her an understanding smile.

"I will, Rain," Lara agreed. "I'll look after you." Tony couldn't believe that a five-year-old was being more motherly than the woman who was supposed to be looking after all of them. The woman in question was still standing beside him, seemingly in shock.

Raina smiled at Erin, before flinging her arms around her. "I love you, Erin," she said, her voice muffled. Erin wrapped her in a tight hug.

"I love you too, kiddo. Don't let the nightmares rule you, okay?"

Erin took the time to hug each and every one of the girls tightly. She knew that even if she visited often, she probably wouldn't be able to make much of a difference. That was, if she wasn't dragged off to the top secret government agency that the Avengers worked with. To be honest, if the government was involved somehow, Erin wouldn't see the girls ever again.

She took a deep breath, and despite her exhausted body from the fight she'd had that day, she let a small tendril of green absorb into each girls skin. It would help them all sleep better for the next couple of months, get that much needed rest and recuperation by keeping their endorphins and dopamine levels high and make them happy. Her healing powers were basically a drug, although she rarely used them on anyone else.

Erin walked forward toward the Avengers, through the crowd of older girls who parted for her, hissed insults and barely veiled threats following her ominously. One stuck out their foot, elbowing their friend in the side and sniggering, waiting for when Erin to trip and fall with baited breath.

Erin nimbly stepped out of the way, used to the blatant hostility she was receiving. She stuck her finger up at them as she passed, earning a mental congratulations from Tony, who on the spot decided that he would be the one to adopt her from the orphanage. She was too like him to pass up such a good opportunity. They could both make Fury furious. Steve shot him a look, as if to inform him that he knew exactly what Tony was thinking, and that he should get the idea out of his head, _immediately_.

Thor put an arm protectively around Erin's shoulders as they all led her out of the room, Erin waving goodbye to the littler girls, many of whom were crying.

"Quite a fan club you have there," Hawkeye commented as they stood outside, waiting for the transport Ironman was supposed to have organised for the grounded Avengers. They were taking a break from the jet- not only was it too conspicuous, but most of the time they only needed to go a few blocks from where they all lived at the Avengers Tower in the middle of New York.

"I teach the little girls martial arts. Macey has a habit of picking on the little ones, but I keep her distracted enough to leave them alone."

The Black Widow looked intrigued by the admittance of her knowledge of martial arts.

"She doesn't like you, does she?" Thor asked eventually, even though he knew the answer.

"Dislike would be an understatement. Deep hatred would be close. Mortal enmity would be even closer, but not there." Everybody looked taken aback by her fairly blunt statement.

"What did you do to the girls?" Tony asked, folding the papers that he had signed with Miss Hannah hours before for custody of Erin just an hour before and placing them in a compartment of his suit.

"Oh, I bewitched them to kill every girl in Macey's little gang of four hundred," Erin replied nonchalantly.

"Kidding!" she spluttered, to the open mouth of everybody surrounding her. "It will help them sleep a lot better at night- I used my healing powers to stimulate the happy drugs in their brains. None of them have been sleeping well since the Battle of New York- a lot of the kids here are newly-made orphans because of the invasion."

"What can you do, Erin, other than heal people?" Black Widow asked curiously.

"Are you going to tell Fury like a good minion, Natashalie?" Tony said sharply, with an angry glance at the assassin.

"Wait, what?" Erin asked, glancing at the Black Widow and back to Tony.

"She lies for a living. She's a spy, Erin. Just be careful what you say around her and Hawkeye. I feel that they still secretly work for Fury."

"I don't, Tony. We work for the Avengers Initiative now."

"Screw the establishment," Hawkeye said. Erin giggled, and turned to the Black Widow.

"I can heal and read minds. I can fire bolts of energy, even though I prefer not to. I'm also quick on my feet."

Tony face palmed, calling his armour to him.

"Thor, let's go," he said, Black Widow and Dr Banner tearing off on a motorcycle without even saying goodbye.

"Welcome to the team," Ironman said, holding out a hand for her to shake. She grasped it firmly and smiled. "Oh, and by the way, I'm the one who signed the adoption papers, so I guess I'm your father for the time being."

"Thanks. It's nice to know that some people want me around."

"We need to go get you some gear, plus a name. Cap? Meet us at the tower."

And with that, he flew off with Thor, meaning that Steve, Hawkeye and Erin were left on the sidewalk. Alone.

 **~O~O~O~O~**

 **And there is Chapter 3! Let me know what you think!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Alright everybody! Here is CHAPTER FOUR! I legitimately did not think that I would have enough time to write a new chapter this week, but I have, so here it is! Thanks go to** **19irene96 and Assassins-of-Illusion for leaving reviews! I do appreciate it, as it lets me know what people think of my writing :).**

 **~O~O~O~O~**

Erin stepped onto the street and took a deep breath. In the space of an hour, she had changed her life dramatically, walking away from everything she'd ever know. Honestly, it scared her a lot.

Steve noticed her looking off into the distance, her mind miles away. She held her arms against her chest as if it were cold. He wrapped an arm around her, thinking she was cold, but her skin was warm to the touch. Which, in the cold rain and wind, was totally abnormal.

"Is something wrong?" he inquired, looking at her in concern, the droplets from the light rain beginning to travel down her face.

She rubbed her arm gently.

"Are we walking?" Erin asked, peering around the grown men standing beside her, expecting a mode of transport to appear instantaneously. It was Tony freaking Stark, for goodness sakes! The man came back from the dead- transport shouldn't be that hard to achieve.

"No," Hawkeye said, grinning cheerfully. "Walking is for the peasants. We are superheroes. We don't do something as common as walking."

Steve sent him a glare, Erin chuckling at their childish act.

Even though they had saved the world, the two still bickered, although most of it was good natured bickering. Just last week, Steve had been introduced to the concept of 'Your Mother' jokes. It took him a solid two days to stop stammering and apologising to Natasha- who, by being the only female in the tower, instantly took the female role of whatever they were doing. The only other alternative to this was Hawkeye or Dr Banner, and they were terrible. Needless to say, the bickering had remained rather clean.

"Then how do we get to the Avengers Tower?" Erin asked curiously.

"Working with Tony Stark has its perks. Hover bikes are one of the perks," Hawkeye told her. "Even if having to see Tony Stark almost every day isn't a perk to our jobs at all."

He pressed a button on his quiver, calling up three hover bikes. Erin was too busy examining the material that Steve's uniform was made of to notice that transport was on its way, and Hawkeye smiled as the shy super soldier blushed a lot at the female touch. However, the captain seemed to be holding up the other end of the conversation, and Erin was chatting away, ignorant of the look on Steve's face.

The hover bikes sped round the corner- almost killing several people loitering on the sidewalks directly in the path of the hover bikes. Tony had built them specifically to get from Point A to Point B as quickly and efficiently as possible. He wasn't particularly concerned about road rules and speed limits. The hover bikes whined and stopped in front of the trio with a small whir.

"I don't know how to use one of these." Erin looked cautiously at the bike, pacing around it and inspecting it thoroughly.

Steve looked at her in amazement. He rode manual- which meant that he knew exactly how it worked. Something that he was sure not even Stark knew, due to the fact that JARVIS had created the actual hover bike- Stark had just drawn up the plans and supplied the resources needed to make them.

"I do! I ride manually. I don't really trust the autopilot," he said excitedly. Erin smiled warmly at him. "You're welcome to ride with me."

"Ah, yeah, no Steve. Tony is yea close to throwing you off the Tower. I wouldn't push him by showing up with his adopted 'daughter'," Hawkeye stated, and waved his card in front of the GPS navigator on Erin's bike.

"You don't trust anything twenty first century anyway," he added.

The coordinates for the tower were displayed on the screen in a bright neon that frightened Erin immensely. There were no real controls on the hover bike. She would have to hope that it got her there in one piece.

"It'll take you right there," Hawkeye said, as though he could read her mind. "Press the green button to go, red button to stop. If you have any problems, Steve here will be there to help. The emergency button is the blue one down there; press it only when you're in lots of trouble," Hawkeye told her, gesturing to the buttons as he informed her of what they could do.

Erin hesitantly sat on the bike. She could feel the humming of the engine beneath her as the bike rose into the air. She could hear the whine of the engine as it started up after she pressed the green button. Steve and Hawkeye moved alongside her. It was a little unnerving.

She looked around for something. She checked behind her seat, over her shoulder and in the small compartment at the front of the bike. While she found a small tin of breath mints, she couldn't find what it was she was looking for and asked instead.

"Where are the seatbelts?" she asked Hawkeye, pointing at the controls. He gave a short, sharp laugh.

"What seatbelts?"

 **~O~O~O~O~**

After a pretty terrifying ride to the Avengers Tower and the hover bikes had been stored away for a later usage, Erin was finally able to calm her heart down. She know fully understood what Dr Banner must constantly feel like.

"Never, _ever_ , doing that again," she announced definitively as she was led up to the communications room by Steve and Hawkeye. Dr Banner and the Black Widow joined them moments later, Dr Banner blushing whilst Black Widow was giggling like a school girl.

"Nice to see you guys made it in one piece," Tony commented as they sat down around a glass table that was surrounded by more technology and wiring than all the devices of New York City.

"One of us almost didn't," Erin muttered absently as she stared out the window before glaring at Steve.

Her hover bike had tried to take the most direct route- thanks to Tony's programming- which was right through an office block. If it hadn't been for her reflexes, she would most likely be un-healable. Her power did not extend as far as putting ribbons back together. That was the reason Steve was riding them manually.

"Sorry. I probably should have warned you about that," Steve said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck as he blushed.

"So, Erin. We have a list of possible names for your superhero persona to have; you need to choose one before we make you a suit."

Tony passed her a sheet of paper with about ten names printed onto it. She scanned through them quickly.

"No… maybe… definitely not … I would rather die… no… no… no… that could work… no… yes! I like that one."

"Which one?" Black Widow probed.

"Pixie."

"It suits you. You have… well… ears, and you are small," Hawkeye snickered. Erin slugged his arm.

"And feisty," he added, rubbing his arm and wincing. "That'll bruise."

"Grow up!" Dr Banner said, glaring at the pair of them, but he was smiling under the serious façade.

Hawkeye punched Erin in the arm, hitting the direct point that had been throbbing all day. She cried out in pain.

"Oh, come on, you big baby! It doesn't hurt that much!" Hawkeye protested.

"No, you hit something!" Erin groaned. She rolled up her sleeve to inspect the source of pain.

Her arm was strawberry red and there seemed to be a lump in the middle of the red. Sparks fizzled around the lump, trying to heal it.

It didn't have any effect. Erin poked it hesitantly, screaming as pain radiated up her arm and into her shoulder. Her nerves protested against her even brushing her fingertips over it. It made her feel dizzy, and she could feel her knees begin to give way beneath her. She took a deep breath and leant against a wall, trying to keep conscious. Steve was instantly beside her

"Catch me if I pass out, please?" Erin asked Thor. He nodded, arms out in preparation for her seemingly inevitable fall.

Tony stood in front of her and did a quick body scan with his suit.

"I didn't even notice it there. It's almost like it's diffusing my powers," Erin moaned.

"It is. You need it removed before it does any more damage," Tony told her, snapping the scanner shut and looking over at Steve. "Call an ambulance. Much as I hate to admit it, we don't have the adequate facilities here at the tower, and we really need to get this out."

"The ambulance won't get here in time," Thor said, as Erin collapsed into his arms, her legs no longer able to support her weight as her hand went to her head, in an attempt to rid herself of the blinding pain.

"The damage is already done," Erin said in a voice that was hers, but at the same time was not hers. There were subtle mannerisms in her speech that indicated it wasn't her speaking, and her hands lost most of their animation. It was a little like she had been possessed. Sadly, this was a very possible reality.

 **~O~O~O~O~**

"I own the girl now," Erin said. Clue number two that perhaps it wasn't Erin speaking. "In minutes, my soldiers will be in your house, and then with no Avengers to save it, Earth will be mine."

The evil voice paused. "Also, whoever invented the Barbie movie franchise will be taken and tortured until they are begging for the sweet relief death will bring to them. She is a doll, not the star of some movie."

Erin broke out of the trance, to see Tony smirking at her while Steve just looked extremely confused.

' _Run_!' she yelled. 'The Skrulls are coming! Leave me here and _run_!"

"We are not leaving you behind for the Skrulls to get you," Steve said sternly.

"Leave the girl behind!" the Skrull voice ordered through Erin, but they were ignored.

"You can go and die," Tony said. "Go jump into the Sun."

"Leave the girl behind, or the all of you die along with her."

"No," Steve growled unwaveringly in his Captain America voice, the one that scared the living daylights out of the enemy.

He scooped Erin up, cradling her to his chest and taking extra care to position her comfortably so her legs were draped over his arms and her head was resting on his shoulder. He ran with her out of the tower, down the streets to the strange stares of the civilians.

Steve ran all the way to the hospital.

 **~O~O~O~O~**

 **And that there is how Erin got her name.**

 **I am aware of the fact that her superhero name is now Pixie (which kinda clashes with Flight, I know, but I wrote this one first and never EVER thought I would publish it, so I am justified), but as Hawkeye pointed out, it** ** _does_** **suit her.**

 **The Skrulls are also a big part of this story... which gives me a little bit of artistic license and a way to create awesome new characters.**

 **Let me know what you think by leaving a review!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Okay guys! So, here is Chapter 5! I have no idea if you all liked the last chapter, because there weren't any reviews (which was a little sad). However, I hope you are all enjoying the story so far. Things have been a little hectic because of me moving and starting Uni (I got in- can you believe it?), so I'm really sorry for not posting sooner...**

 **Anyway, enough about me. On with the story!**

 **~O~O~O~**

Captain America was in the hospital, standing outside the operating theatre door, a million thoughts running through his head.

This had meant that he was privy to even more strange looks by the hospital staff and patients who wandered past. Thankfully, they all had decided he looked too worried to bother him for an autograph, which in itself was a blessing. Though his pacing was enough to put anyone off talking to him.

The doctors had instantly cleared the theatre and wheeled Erin- who looked so frail on the gurney, hooked up to various machines, her breathing and heartbeat erratic- into the theatre immediately. Though that could be because he kicked the doors down in the process of getting help.

She had stopped breathing while they had been running there, and he swore that _his_ heart had stopped when she had. From inside the operating theatre there was a flash and green light flooded out from under the door. He looked in through the clear plastic in the door and saw Erin.

 _Get in there, you idiot!_ A voice in his head screamed at him, causing him to wonder where it had come from.

The heart monitor had flat lined. The doctors had the defibrillator out, hands hastily placing the appropriate wiring on Erin's chest. The other doctors were clear. One pressed the paddles to Erin's chest. There was a second flash and Erin sat up, light pulsing off her skin and flowing like sheets of water onto the floor. She tried to rip the wires off of her, but the hands of the doctors prevented her from doing so. The IV was quickly pulled out however, blood pooling in Erin's arm from where the needle had been.

Captain America opened the door and sprinted in, knowing that he was probably the most qualified to deal with superpowers out of all of the doctors. That and she would most likely need a friendly face so that she didn't think the doctors were trying to hurt her. She reminded him of when he had first woken up. Mind you, he had actually burst through a wall and run barefoot into Times Square, and then got arrested by SHIELD quite publicly.

"Steve?" Erin asked, a pained look crossing her face, her forehead scrunched up in concentration as if she was mentally battling something. "What the hell is going-?" She fell back onto the gurney, unconscious.

The doctors took advantage of her sudden unconsciousness and crowded around her, attaching various tubes and monitors to her, as others began to cut into her arm, removing a small circular device, made out of metal. One of the assistants rinsed the blood off it as a doctor stitched her arm up.

"She's slipping!" a nurse shouted, looking at the captain's panic-stricken face in sympathy as he tugged at his hair in frustration. _He should have seen this coming, he should have-_

One of the doctors ushered him out before he tried to hurt someone or himself. Quickly checking the corridor for any signs of human inhabitants, he held his hands out to show Steve the small metallic thing that had been embedded in Erin's arm. It was a sphere made of some kind of metal Steve had never seen before. He gently took it, examining it closely. It was about the same size as a cherry, and had small lines from where bits of metal plating had been joined together. It seemed strange that somebody had gone to the trouble of putting it in Erin's arm.

"It was controlling her powers, and it was Skrull," the doctor declared, placing it in a small resealable lunch bag and doing up the snap seal with some hesitancy. "You may want to have Stark check it out before you give it back to her. It could be encoded to target only her DNA. We've seen this kind of technology before with the Fantastic Four. They have altercations with the Skrulls all the time. Johnny is always in here. You two look quite similar, you know?"

"What happened to her, exactly?" Steve asked, looking at the small device that had caused so much trouble.

"I assume you are familiar with the term 'blood-letting'?" the doctor inquired.

Steve nodded sharply. Blood-letting was a pagan thing, a popular medical practice that apparently removed the unhealthy blood from the body to cure the patient of the disease, but if anything, contributed to the death of the patient instead. It had been disproved as a relevant theory over one hundred years ago, but there were still places in the world that continued to practice it.

"Well, it was like a massive build-up of blood- except in this case it was power. It was being controlled by the Skrulls, but at one point it was overridden by her, and that led to her the extreme amounts of energy you saw before. It's affected her brain patterns, and at the moment she'd in an induced coma to try and heal her whilst the energy calms back down. If we'd had more time before it became full-blown then this might not have happened," the doctor revealed.

"But one of her powers is the ability to heal with a touch!" Captain America argued.

"Her powers will not be full strength for at least a month. One and a half tops," the doctor replied, checking the clipboard he had brought out with him.

"I should have asked her. This is my fault. She was in pain, and I should have noticed it." Steve internally kicked himself for not picking it up sooner. His job was to protect the innocent from harm, to shield them, and yet, he had failed. The Skrulls had confused him, made him question everything, and it was going to be hard to shake off. There were so many factors in this equation that he didn't know where he could begin to solve it.

"Apart from that, there would have been little you could have done to prevent this," the doctor said, putting a hand on the distressed Avenger's arm. "Judging from the bone growth and where it had been placed on her arm, it was only a matter of time until it moved and became activated."

"But I should have tried to do something!" he said exasperatedly.

"You guys did all that you could," the doctor murmured sympathetically, before disappearing around a corner to see another patient.

 **~O~O~O~**

"Why is he like this?" Black Widow asked the team as the team all stared in at Erin in the infirmary, but she wasn't referring to Erin. She was referring to the person that had been sitting at Erin's bedside for a straight two weeks, refusing to leave her alone.

"He personally blames himself for what happened to her," Thor put in. "And the fact that he was gone for all that time…"

"I tried to make him go to sleep in an actual bed, but he absolutely refused," Hawkeye said. "Short of sedating him, nothing will get him out of there until she wakes up."

"He _did_ get sedated, you idiot," Tony said, but was ignored by the rest of his team.

"He only leaves to go to the bathroom," Dr Banner informed the pair. "And even then, it's not for that long. I think he took the world's shortest shower the other day."

"He's like a bloody hermit! How long is it supposed to be until this coma ends?" Hawkeye groaned.

"Calm down. In fact, it should be any day now," Tony told them as he approached them from behind. His face softened as he saw Steve staring at Erin in a way that he had once looked at Pepper. Before she left him, of course. Erin had made her mark on all of them in the short time they had known her- longer now that she'd been in a coma, but it was the conscious time that counted- and he knew that her willingness to sacrifice herself to the crazy aliens for the sake of the people she had just met meant that she had endeared herself to all of them.

He really just wanted the stupid coma to be over.

 **~O~O~O~**

It was at three one afternoon, right at the end of the craziest month that the occupants of the Avengers Tower had ever experienced- namely, Steve disappearing for a lengthy period, Tony trying to cook and That Incident With Thor And The Toaster nobody was allowed to breathe a word of to anyone ever- that Erin finally felt like she was coming to the surface.

After a month of pretty weird dreams and some really terrifying nightmares that come from being trapped within the mind for an extended period of time, she was quite ready to leave dream world.

"Erin?" somebody's voice boomed in her ears. The voice was familiar, calming. As she tried to put a face to it, she realised that the only thing she could recall was a flash of blonde hair and piercing blue eyes.

"Erin? I know you can hear me. Tony says you should be lucidly dreaming by now. You need to get up," the voice said, something shaking her roughly, as if that would wake her up.

She swatted at the person shaking her. "Five minutes," she murmured softly, rolling over. She was surprised by how much effort was required to say those two words, but she managed to get them out. Her brain was in that familiar fog that comes with just waking up and not properly adjusting to her surroundings. When she finally processed that there weren't usually men in the dorm room that she shared with the younger girls, her eyes snapped open and she sat bolt upright in the bed, looking around quickly.

"You're awake!" Captain America yelled ecstatically, giving an extremely surprised Erin a hug.

She looked around in amazement- from the equipment she knew she would break if she so much as looked at it that lined the wall- to the superhero that sat across from her, his face lit up with joy.

"Where am I?" she questioned, rubbing her face as she struggled to sit up. Captain America helped her by positioning the cushions so that she was sitting comfortably and handed her a glass of water.

"You're in the infirmary," he told her, listening to the shouts coming from the hallway outside her room- undoubtedly because Tony had most likely got JARVIS to spy on her and let him know when she'd woken up. And the team had most likely come with him because they all wanted to talk to Erin.

People rushed into the room, pausing mid-step and staring at Erin in amazement.

"Oh, thank God! We thought you were irretrievable!" Tony Stark exclaimed, smiling happily at her. He sat down in the spare seat- the one Steve wasn't occupying- and looked up at the ceiling. "JARVIS? Call Dr Hoskins and get him to stop by the tower."

"Yes, sir," a disembodied voice said. "The doctor is on his way."

Erin searched for the source but found none, much to Tony's amusement.

"Steve, take off your mask," Tony said, rolling her eyes. "It's not like she's going to fangirl on you. Erin is normal."

"And I defied the odds yet again," Erin responded to Tony's previous statement, wincing and trying to swing herself out of her bed. "Not exactly normal- I mean, who defeats a giant robot thing with powers that technically shouldn't exist?"

Captain America stopped her, pushing her back onto the bed. It was clear he wasn't going to take chances with her health again.

"No. Don't even think about it," he said. "You've just woken up from a coma, and until the doctor says otherwise, you are going to stay in bed."

She glared at him, and Hawkeye sniggered until the Black Widow punched him hard in the arm. And it must have hurt coming from a super-scary assassin, because Hawkeye shut up immediately.

"Do you need anything?" the Black Widow enquired, her hands deftly braiding Erin's hair out of her face. While Steve had made sure it stayed clean and brushed, it was a mess and she knew that Erin probably would want to look as normal and groomed as possible.

"Information would be good," Erin replied hesitantly. "How long was I out for?"

"A month," Hawkeye informed her, ignoring the dirty looks the team sent him. Of course, he wouldn't break it gently to Erin. It wasn't like she had been asleep for seventy years, unlike a certain captain they all knew. "One month and three weeks."

"Great." Erin fiddled with the drip in her arm. She slid the needle out from beneath her skin and watched sparks seal the wound. A smile lit up her face, and Steve stopped himself from reprimanding her over the removal of the IV. By removing it, she had successfully detached herself from the coma, and the vulnerability that came with it.

"Let me show you something," Dr Banner said, elbowing his way past Thor and pulling something out of his wallet, watching Erin's expression cautiously. He could have waited until later, but he needed to determine if the small sphere was a threat or not as soon as he possibly could. "I've been meaning to do something with this in the lab, but I wanted to wait until you woke up so I could obtain your permission to use it."

Erin held the little sphere in her palm, looking at it from all angles.

"This was in me?" she asked dubiously, prodding it curiously. "It caused all this trouble?"

"It controlled your powers," Tony informed her, reaching out to take it back from her when the little sphere lit up, a high-pitched squeal emitted from it, and the sphere began to spin in the palm of her hand.

Erin shrieked and dropped it. It bounced off the bed onto the floor, and the light dimmed as the sphere stopped spinning. Everybody in the infirmary was silent as they all stared at it, and then Erin.

"That might be worth investigating," Tony said drolly to Dr Banner. He nodded and left with the sphere in a small containment unit that they always, for some reason, kept in the infirmary. The doctor that was supposed to be examining Erin burst into the room as soon as Dr Banner was gone.

"Hey there, Erin!" The doctor exuded cheerfulness. It made Erin shudder and recoil.

"Good morning, doctor," she said coldly, regarding him with suspicion. Nobody could be that happy without the aid of drugs, and if that was the case, she didn't want this guy examining her for her health.

He took her pulse and blood pressure, his eyebrows raising a little high. He then gave her the average medical check-up- a check-up that consisted of asking her questions about painful parts of her body and 'whether it hurt when he pressed it'. It wasn't too effective. All the while he was doing this, the whole team was watching Erin's unease with their hands on their various weapons.

"All done," he declared when he had finished. "You are very healthy, despite the fact that you have just woken up from a coma." He waved to the team and smiled at Erin before turning to leave.

"What, no lollipop?" Erin requested sarcastically as she thought he was out of earshot, her mocking tone somehow hidden from the doctor as he returned, grinning happily.

"Wait, I might have one in here somewhere…" the good doctor said, burying his hand in his bag and rummaging through it, smiling in exaltation as he produced three bright pink, heart-shaped lollipops. Erin immediately drew back and waved her hands in front of her with a 'no deal' sign as he tried to hand one to her.

"I'm kidding. My last doctor gave them to me every time I went in. I got sick of lollipops after some time."

The doctor looked puzzled, but smiled at her before replacing the lollipops and picking up his bag. "Well, you certainly haven't lost any humour. I recommend weekly check-ups until you get the clean bill of health. I wish you all the best."

"Thank you, Marcus," Tony said as the doctor left, shaking his hand before the doctor disappeared.

"We have a present for you," Tony stated, crossing the room and rummaging through a box of what looked like missile launchers to straighten up with a nervous glance at Steve before he walked over and nervously handed her a package. She smiled at the wrapping paper- a multitude of rainbow balloons that sparkled in the sunlight that streamed into the infirmary.

"Open it!" Hawkeye urged, jumping onto her bed and bouncing around like a small child, trying to open the present _for_ her.

"She's just been in a coma!" Dr Banner said exasperatedly as he came back into the infirmary, throwing his hands up into the air. "You'll make her too tired to do the birthday celebrations, and then you'll end up not opening the present."

"No, it's fine. I'm glad he's excited for me," Erin laughed, looking down at the small package in her lap. Erin hesitantly opened the package, and pulled off the paper gently. The present slid out of its wrapping and fell onto the blankets.

Sitting on the infirmary bed was a beautiful emerald green suit, made perfectly for her.

"Seeing as you said your super name was Pixie, I thought I could come up with a suit that you can wear when you start moving around and Banner feels that you're able to leave the infirmary. It includes a mask- if you want one- and your earpiece can be built into the mask or the suit, depending on how you want to go about the whole superhero business."

"Thanks." Erin held the suit up to get a good look at it. It looked quite form-fitting- hugging all the places it should and leaving all the places it should not be. It extended down to her ankles, the ends hidden with a pair of knee-high brown leather boots which she knew would hug her calves and also fit snugly around her foot. They had been designed for speed and agility, something Tony must have taken into consideration when he was making her suit. "Am I allowed to get this dirty?" she asked in awe.

"Yes. And as an added bonus, it is machine washable," Tony informed her proudly. That process had taken over three weeks just to get the material right. It was also partially bulletproof, which everybody's suit- minus Thor's because he was a god- now had. It had meant far less casualties in the field, and Fury was beginning to use it for some of his SHIELD agents. Tony had, or course, charged him a lot of money just for Fury being able to use the formula and equipment, which could only be found at Stark Industries.

"Thanks guys," Erin whispered softly, staring at the people crowding around the end of her bed. They all watched her carefully as a tear slipped down her cheek while she looked at the suit that sat in her lap. "It's the best first birthday present I've ever received,"

"First birthday present?" Hawkeye looked incredibly confused. Which was not something he did often due to the fact that he was a spy- used to getting all the information he needed immediately.

"We never celebrated birthdays at Miss Hannah's. It was apparently un-godly, but then again, we did celebrate Macey's, so that makes her a giant religious hypocrite, I guess. I never was very religious, so I really didn't get the point of that."

"It's your birthday?" Tony asked bewilderedly. The question as to why she wasn't celebrating it was at the tip of his tongue, but he held it in, mentally planning a party for that night. "JARVIS, cancel the rest of my appointments for the day please?

Oh, and he was definitely not inviting Fury, even though he knew that Fury would no doubt still rock up. Agent Hill could come too, and Erin could meet Rhodey- yep, the party was now happening.

"Pretty much. I am officially eighteen," Erin informed them.

"Do you want anything else for your birthday? A car, a key to the city…?"

"Much as the car bit is tempting, I don't really trust myself enough to drive a high-powered sports car, and I'm pretty sure New York doesn't have gates. What I would really like is to not be a superhero all the time.'

"You do have your alter-ego…" Tony began, realising that he sounded stupid because he was the only one in that room who didn't quite understand what the big deal about the secret identities of the superheroes was about. After all, he was Ironman, the coolest superhero of them all.

"An alter-ego only goes so far. I mean have a totally normal life. I don't want to be on SHIELD's radar, or anybody's radar. Just like a normal, average teenager."

"Like, school and stuff?" Hawkeye asked, unable to comprehend _why_ somebody would want to willingly attend school, get bullied, cry from the stress of exams and make friends who you wouldn't see after you graduated.

"Yes, like school and stuff. And I get to go on excursions, and have friends over- provided I get any- and be allowed to get a job in the real world in case this superhero thing doesn't work out. I just want to be normal. Not that weird kid that Tony Stark adopted who is rumoured to be a superhero.'

"Agreed, so long as I get to give them a background check and you give me an hour of notice before anything out of the normal routine gets changed," Tony said quickly.

The pair shook hands on it, the whole team standing there with their mouths open.

 **~O~O~O~**

 **So, there we have it. Let me know what you think by leaving a review! I'd love to know your thoughts.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Hello everybody! Here is chapter six. I lost the book that had my story when I moved, and I managed to find it last week, so in between mountains of work, I managed to write this up. So, hooray! I hope you like it- if you do, leave a review- I love knowing what you think.**

 **~O~O~O~**

Erin was downstairs in the kitchen, looking at suitable schools for herself with Tony. Tony had insisted upon sending her to the best schools in New York, but she wasn't willing to go to an all-girls school or a prissy private school.

"What about this one?" Tony asked her, pointing at the webpage to a photo of some girls sitting on the lawns of this red-brick building school with straw hats and maroon blazers on, laughing at something the teacher who had dared to invade their chat had said. It was a very modelled photo.

Erin wrinkled her nose.

"The uniform is really ugly." It was a last ditch attempt to subtly tell him she hated it.

Tony rolled his eyes. "It's not about the ugliness of the uniform, it's about the –"

"–curriculum," Erin finished for him, rolling her eyes back at him.

"Not having any luck?" Steve – better known as Captain America – asked as he came into the kitchen. He was sweaty from having a training session in the gym before, and he smelt- not bad, but not great either.

"He's trying to send me to a snobby girls' school," Erin groaned.

"I refuse to send her to a public school," Tony proclaimed.

"I can relate to that," Natasha, also Black Widow, said as she came into the kitchen with Bruce, a.k.a Dr Banner. She switched the kettle on and began making tea. Natasha was on a no-caffeine diet, due to the fact that she pinged off the walls if she ingested even the slightest amount. This included chocolate, and Bruce and Hawkeye enjoyed teasing her about it tremendously. They also liked coming to Erin with several bruises and broken noses.

"Me too," Bruce agreed. He had hated going to a private school- where everything was about money and nothing was about the people. It was all about appearances instead of the kids, and looking good academically, which for some kids was hard. He really did understand the struggles of high school, and made sure that Erin knew this in case Tony did his not-caring thing and she couldn't relate to Steve in her high school experiences.

"Why doesn't the whole team have a conversation about this?" Tony grumbled, throwing his hands up in the air in frustration. "I mean, we decide on things as a team, so this might as well be no different!"

"That's a very good idea, Tony," Hawkeye- who Erin still couldn't squeeze a name out of with the reason being his name was classified- commented, as he walked into the kitchen with Thor. They had apparently been training in what the team called 'The Danger Room'. What that was, Erin was not entirely sure. She didn't know if she wanted to find out either- a few broken bones had come out of it in the few days she had been there. And some pretty nasty injuries that she'd been called to the infirmary to heal.

Thor pulled out a packet of Pop-Tarts and placed them in the toaster, leaning against the kitchen bench with his arms folded as he waited for them to cook.

"What is this 'high school' you speak of? Why does she not learn here, at the Tower?" he asked Tony, who looked up from his frantic trawling of the internet.

"High school is a place that all the adults of the world send their children to be educated amongst other people their age. It is a place of human misery and degradation," Tony said, scrolling through the list of schools in their zone.

"I just want to go to a public high school," she argued. "It's really not that hard to understand. I've been in the public school system my whole life and it honestly hasn't affected me as much as you seem to think it has."

"You can't. I refuse to let any minor under my care get a terrible education," he said impatiently, tapping his foot and fiddling with the touch screens.

"You are so unbiased. The universe must look to you for justice," Erin muttered. Hawkeye choked on the coffee he had taken a sip of and had Thor give him a manly clap on the back, resulting in him being pushed into the nearest wall.

"Look, I have a fortune and I'm willing to spend some on you, okay?" Tony said.

"Whatever," she muttered, giving him the 'W' for whatever with her hands.

"So what school would you like to go to?"

"This one," she said, pointing to a school on the list that Tony had sitting up on his computer.

"That's _public_ ," Tony stressed for about the eighth time.

"Your point being…?" Erin asked stubbornly.

"I am not sending you to a public school. When will you get that into your head? I will not allow you to ruin your life."

"Then I just won't go to school then," Erin said, obstinately folding her arms across her chest and leaning back in her chair, glaring at him to the point that he flinched. She had been imitating Natasha's assassin glare, which was enough to make most people- especially men, for some bizarre reason- flinch. Natasha had been teaching her for a while, on the basis that while it was unsettling from her, it was even more so from Erin, who now sat across from Tony with a mug of tea in hand and a smirk on her face that worried him.

"You are going to school even if we have to drag you there."

"I for one will not be dragging her," Thor piped up as his Pop Tarts finished toasting. He knew firsthand from some of the basic training Steve had asked him to do with Erin that when she was angry, she was a formidable opponent, worthy of his undivided attention in a fight.

"I don't mean it like that. She has to go to school," Tony said. "It's kind of a legal requirement here. And she is not going to a public high school."

"I can't believe I'm about to do this but…" Erin slid to her knees, clasping her hands and looking pleadingly at Tony from where she was at his feet.

Tony looked down at her, confused as to why Erin was on her knees in front of him over something as trivial as a public high school.

"Please, please, please, please, can I go to James Hill?" she begged. "I promise I'll clean your suit for a month."

"I guess so, seeing as you asked so nicely," he said smugly, standing up as something vibrated in his pocket. "My suit needs a very specific type of polish, so you'll have to make it up in the lab for me."

He ignored Erin- who rolled her eyes at him and began muttering something about eccentric billionaires.

Tony frowned as his phone rang. Who would ring so early in the morning? It was only seven o'clock- in theory, he shouldn't be up as early as he was, but Erin needed to make a decision on which school she was going to attend before midday so that he could submit her forms. Only Pepper, Happy, Rhodey and some important SHIELD people had his number. And they usually called the Tower phone, not his mobile.

"Tony," he said as he answered it, turning around to hear whoever was talking clearly.

The person on the other end of the line babbled something, and Tony's frown grew even deeper.

"I see. Some of the team will be there as soon as possible."

He closed the connection, looking at the two superheroes standing in front of him. "Erin and Steve, you need to come with me. Erin, it's time for you to make your debut. Steve, this is a matter of a personal nature that you must attend to."

"Why would that be?" Steve asked. "I am in the middle of eating my breakfast." He pointed to the half-eaten piece of toast in his hand as if that would explain it. Thor, sensing that Steve needed to go with Tony, plucked the toast out of Steve's hand and ate the remainder of it in three bites.

Steve glared at him. Erin giggled.

"Something happened to the Captain America memorial statue on the waterfront," Tony informed them all.

There was a collective gasp from the Avengers seated around the table.

"We'll be back down in a minute," Steve said.

 **~O~O~O~**

"Do we have any idea as to how this happened?" Ironman asked the police chief. The chief shook his head.

"It was done by the public, so it isn't criminally related, gang related or villain related." The chief looked over at the ruins of the statue sadly. The Captain America statue had been an important part of American history, and it was a shame to see the statue torn up by the public like that. Bucky had fortunately remained intact, but Captain America had been reduced to a pile of rubble on the pier.

"Can't you fingerprint it?" Erin asked curiously.

"There is a boatload of tourists that come here every day. It would take hours of sorting through the rubble to be able to identify even one of the main offenders."

On the base of the statue, the bit that couldn't be hacked into pieces, were the words "TRAITOR", which puzzled Erin a little. Okay, if she was going to be honest, it puzzled her a lot.

Captain America was sitting on the edge of the concrete pier, his feet dangling over the water, his mouth set in a hard line.

Erin noticed this, and left the chief to talk with Ironman as she went to talk with Captain America. She knew him well enough by now- even though it had only been a few days since she moved into Avengers Tower- that by the small curve in his generally straight spine, she could tell he was distressed.

"Hey," she said quietly, sitting beside him.

"Hey," he replied sullenly, not looking up at her.

"Who's the newbie?" the police chief inquired, his eyes not leaving the teenage girl sitting beside Captain America. He'd deduced she was a teenager simply by the fact that she looked so innocent, even beneath the mask. No frown marred her face as many of the older superheroes

"Her name is Pixie," Ironman informed him. He noticed the police officers who were supposed to be filing and sorting through the rubble for evidence. It was amazing what a female superhero could do to civilian men.

"And she's eighteen!" he added sharply.

Many heads turned away from the teenage girl.

"What did you do?" Erin probed gently.

"I didn't do anything wrong," he spat bitterly. "My impostor did."

"Impostor?" She was seriously confused now.

"While you were in your coma, we went to war with the Skrulls. They captured me, and sent one of their impostor soldiers to replace me. There was an elaborate plan in place that would replace people of high authority with Skrulls and I was unfortunately one of them. The impostor told the civilians to give into the Skrulls, and that the world would be a better place. There was a war in which the team almost broke apart completely. Now that the war is over, and the Skrulls imprisoned in a top secret location, nobody except a choice few of the public and the Avengers believe my alien story. Everybody else thinks I'm a traitor to America, to the world."

Captain America turned away from her, instead looking into the city and then at his reflection in the water.

"A traitor to the very thing I was made for."

Erin stopped short. At the orphanage, she had been taught to hate superheroes. Of course, she didn't believe half of it due to the fact that she was one, but it didn't comfort her to know that there were about two hundred small children going around and spouting lies about city superheroes, the people who made their lives safer.

"If it helps, I believe you. I believe that you did the best you could to protect people, to make things right for the city," Erin said gently.

She squeezed his hand reassuringly. He hadn't realised that during some point in his story, he had taken her hand. She hadn't shaken him off and he was fairly certain that this was the longest amount of time he had spent in contact with a girl when he wasn't fighting. Peggy may have counted, but that was a long, long time ago and thinking about the past hurt a part of him that he thought he had hidden a long time ago, when his best friend disappeared, a plane had crashed into the ocean and he had become- as Stark liked to put it- _"a Capsicle!"_ , which really showed how much the world had changed, to be honest. And then the things with the Skrulls had happened and ruined his chance at a semi-normal life, at a chance to right all the wrongs that had happened during the Battle of New York.

He looked straight into Erin's eyes, and saw the pain, the hurt and the suffering he had been through reflected in her eyes too. She had shared a terrifying ordeal like him.

 _Worth noting_ , he said to himself, and made a mental reminder to go through her file like Fury had suggested. Not that he listened to Fury, and neither did Stark, but this was possibly important.

"Thank you, Pix," he said, squeezing her hand tightly before letting go of it. She noticed the grimace that came when he used her field name- it obviously felt a little bit weird to him.

He stood up and pulled her up with him. He gave her a tight hug. She felt good in his arms- her frame melded against his, and her hair smelt of watermelon.

She hugged him back, registering his smell- a smoky wildflower that encompassed her and comforted her.

"It's not a problem. Any time you want to talk, Steve, don't hesitate, okay? I'm here to help."

The bell tower nearby chimed eight thirty, and Erin looked panicked, like a Cinderella at a ball.

"I have work in half-an-hour, and I still have to get changed into my work clothes," she said to him. "I can't exactly got to work in this." She gestured to the emerald green suit and he smiled.

"Let's go tell Tony you have to leave and then we'll get you out of here."

They walked over to the two law enforcers and the genius in the suit.

"Tony? I'm leaving," Erin announced loudly, causing all three to turn to her.

"Why?" Tony asked, checking his watch and ignoring the fact that there was a clock right in front of him.

"I applied for a job as a journalist, and I got it. It's my first day." She didn't miss the look of disgust on his face as she said it. She wasn't one hundred percent sure that he would let her go.

"Take the bike," Ironman ordered after a moment of silence.

"Thanks," Erin said, running over to the bikes.

"And make sure you turn off the automatic route calculator function!" Captain America yelled after her.

Erin gave him a mock salute- which made him smile- and climbed onto her bike.

She sped off, ready for her new job as a journalist- one of the few professions she knew Tony would hate her for doing, but she had made it her personal quest to annoy him whatever the cost- for the superhero hate paper: The Daily Bugle.

 **~O~O~O~**

 **So there we go! Erin is slowly becoming a very independent person, and for some reason is making more new friends than me... What do you make of her relationships with each member of team? If you have any suggestions or comments, feel free to leave them as a review- I like to know what you all think.**

 **Just remember- constructive criticism, not destructive criticism.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Oh my gosh, I can't believe that it's taken me this long to post a new chapter.**

 **Hopefully, this is good- let me know what you think about it by leaving a review!**

 **~O~O~O~**

Erin dashed into the newspaper office as soon as she had folded up her bike into the small metal box that sat beside the dumpster out in the alleyway beside the building. With just a few swipes on her phone, it would reassemble itself and arrive at her location, but she swore that she would only do that in a complete emergency.

She realised she must have looked quite a sight as she not only tripped on her way up the stairs into the building, but she had also become trapped in the revolving glass doors that granted access to the building.

 _Superhero my ass,_ she grumbled to herself as she pushed the bits of hair that had escaped from her neat ponytail back from her face. _Can't even get through a door_.

"Can I help you?" The girl at the administration desk smiled as Erin walked up to her desk, digging through her bag for the required paperwork that would grant her access to the office and her job. Jameson had told her that she needed photo ID, which she passed- along with the crumpled and slightly dirty paperwork- to the girl, whose smile wavered a fraction as she hesitantly took the corner of the sheet of paper and placed it out of the way on her desk.

"I'm here to see Mr Jameson," Erin said, checking the clock in case Jameson was strict about arriving on time. Being late on her first day was probably not a good idea. Thankfully, she was punctual.

"He's in the office at the far end of the cubicles. You'll be able to tell his office from the other editors – it's the one that the staff avoids at all costs," the receptionist said, spraying the desk that contained Erin's paperwork with some kind of sanitiser.

"Thank you very much," Erin said, wrinkling her nose at the alcoholic smell before walking past the desk to the offices and cubicles that stretched before her.

"Good luck," the receptionist called after her as Erin walked forward, surveying the room and noticing a wide berth around an office at the end that seemed to have angry shouting coming from it.

Erin turned and gave her a smile in return, which the receptionist didn't see- too busy sanitising her desk to notice Erin's nervousness.

Slowly, putting one foot carefully in front of the other and focusing on that in case she lost her nerve, she went straight to the end office- ignoring the stares from all the staff- took a deep breath and knocked on Jameson's door.

"Come in!" a voice boomed from within, as the sound of something slamming down hard on a desk filtered through the door.

Erin cautiously opened it and went in, covering her head in case things got thrown.

The office was quite spacious, with a mahogany desk and a breathtaking view of the street down below. The only thing that spoiled it was the smoke trailing above the large desk chair.

Erin hesitantly cleared her throat, tensing as the chair moved.

A man smoking a cigar swung around to face Erin, his greying blonde hair spiked into a fauxhawk, his glasses pushed firmly upon the bridge of his nose, highlighting his bright blue eyes.

 _Loki would have loved him. He probably would be his second-in-command_ , Erin thought. She'd heard stories about the ruthlessness of Jameson, and the mere thought of dealing with the man was enough to induce nausea and a decent amount of nerves.

"So you're my new journalist? You're a bit well… younger than I thought you would be. You write with the vocabulary, thoughts and opinions of somebody much older," Jameson said, his voice gravelly from- evidently- years of smoking the cigars. He exhaled, blowing smoke that curled in tendrils around Erin's face, mixing in her hair as he tapped the end on the edge of the ashtray before placing the death trap back in his mouth.

"I'm good at appearing much older than I really am," Erin said, resisting the urge to cough as the smoke made its way into her lungs and caused her breath to become short as she forced herself to breathe through her mouth.

"I guessed that much. I suppose you want to know what you'll be doing here for the time being?" Not waiting for an answer, he continued, swivelling his chair around to stare down at the street below. "I don't generally give this opportunity to newbies such as yourself, but I think we need the ratings boost to get us out of this slump. You'd probably draw in the younger readers too."

Erin stared at him, looking decidedly nervous as she began to play with the hem of her jacket. Jameson- unable to see this- continued.

"You'll be writing a column on a topic of your choice; if the readers don't like it then you will write something else. The readers can be picky, so choose wisely. I expect your first column entry to be on my desk on Monday morning. Is that understood?"

Erin nodded, completely unsure of what she was supposed to be doing but figuring she could clear it up with someone later rather than have to ask any more of this intimidating man.

"Good, get out."

Erin nodded again, before realising Jameson couldn't see her.

"New girl," he said just before she left, as he turned to look at her. "Another thing? We're low on staff today. I'll have to send you and Peter- our web photographer- to do any big story that crops up. Do you understand me?"

Erin nodded wordlessly.

"Good. Now get out of my office and get to work!" he barked.

Erin opened the door to see every member of the paper staff with their ears pressed to the heavy oak, staring at her with gobsmacked expressions.

 **~O~O~O~**

"Nice to see you survived," Chrissie- Erin's cubicle partner- congratulated her, placing a cup of tea on top of one of the many piles of newspapers scattered all over the cubicle. Chrissie had introduced herself while also informing Erin that she was a bit of slob when it came to keeping her workspace clean. She hadn't really minded, and it made the cubicle feel more compact and less of a work environment.

They were in the cubicle furthest from the entrance, Jameson's office, the bathroom while also being strategically close to the breakroom, meaning there were no shortage of visitors stopping by to introduce themselves and offer assistance to Erin if she needed it.

Erin looked at the paper her tea was sitting on.

 _Captain America Traitor_ to _America_ , she read to herself, unknowingly reading it aloud.

Chrissie looked over her shoulder, frowning.

"I hate working here for that one reason. It's a bloody hate paper. It targets the Avengers and Spiderman. Jameson has a deep hatred of both. Secretly, I think it is because he wishes he was a superhero but isn't cool enough to become one."

"Then why do you stay?" Erin asked curiously.

Chrissie went to open her mouth to reply when the doors flung open and somebody stomped into the office.

"This is why I stay, and why I actually come to work on Fridays. Especially on Fridays. Watch the fireworks, newbie," Chrissie snickered, smirking and lounging back in her office chair.

"Where is he?" a familiar voice yelled.

Erin sunk low into her seat, a shiver of dread running down her spine.

Tony Stark had entered the building.

 **~O~O~O~**

 **I know, it was kind of a filler chapter, but it sets up the next one quite well, I think.**

 **Let me know your thoughts by leaving a review!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Thanks guys for the reviews, faves and follows this story has received! It's good to know that you all like it!**

 **~O~O~O~**

"You may smear the name of every other superhero in the city, but you do not smear my team!"

Tony had been shouting at Jameson for the past hour. He had also left the door to Jameson's office mercifully open so that the entire office could hear the solid rant that had, at one stage, devolved into Tony insulting Jameson's mother. Chrissie had sworn that when she passed Jameson's office on her way to the photocopier- in the apparent lull of the argument- that the two men had been engaged in a fierce staring competition. But now they had both resorted to shouting at each other again, much to the delight of Jeremy, who was the journalist responsible for the gossip section of the newspaper- Tony Stark being a prominent and recurring figure within the column.

"I am allowed to smear whoever's name I want to. Freedom of speech," Jameson replied dismissively, which only served to anger Tony more, because the billionaire went deadly quiet. Everybody in the office collectively- and quietly- leant in to hear what he said next.

"Listen up, you scumbag. Do you want to test me? The man you just wrote that terrible article on is a hero, who has not only done his country proud but has also served the world. Terrible things have happened to him, and it is not fair that he is not treated as the hero he is. If I asked Eyepatch very nicely, you can be dragged off by SHIELD in the middle of the night and locked up in a secure facility indefinitely, for no real reason. I can get them to do that, quite happily. Captain America is revered within SHIELD."

"And what you propose to do with me would be highly illegal, no doubt. I would disappear, with the whole of my editorial staff bearing witness to this fact."

Outside the office, everybody hurriedly went back to work, still listening intently, but under the guise of actually doing their assigned work.

"Then I would file a lawsuit, and you would smear the name of your team without me having to do that," Jameson said loudly.

There was a dead silence, and Erin felt something in her chest flip as she realised that Jameson had somehow won the argument.

Tony sighed and pressed his fingertips to his temples as he leant on Jameson's desk, staring at the man intently, waiting for him to flinch away from the glare.

"Okay, here's what I can do. I can give you an exclusive interview with Captain America. Do we have a deal?" Tony asked, not making eye contact with Jameson.

"Do it today and you have yourself a deal," Jameson said, picking up a pen and scribbling something down on a notepad in front of him.

The two men shook hands, Tony squeezing a little harder than necessary and feeling a surge of pride as Jameson winced beneath his iron grip.

"Captain America is doing a prison transfer of some members of the Serpent Society this morning. This goes against SHIELD's transfer procedure and all their rules, but I can put some of your reporters in one of the vehicles with him, and they can do the questioning then. It will allow him to answer openly and honestly- the good Captain does not deal well with any kind of stress, especially when moving highly volatile prisoners. If you're comfortable with your reporters being in there with him, you're welcome to send them."

Jameson glared at Tony. "First of all: they are _journalists_ , not reporters. And secondly: I only have one on hand today, plus our web photographer."

He stood up and went to the door, watching everybody look back at their computers or hurriedly make phone calls to each other in an attempt to look busy. Jameson ignored them.

"Peter Parker and the newbie, get over here now! I have a job for you both to do!" he barked.

Chrissie nudged Erin, who felt a surge of panic rush through her.

"That's you," she whispered. Erin reluctantly got up, poking her head over the cubicles as she slowly approached the office.

Tony stared at her. "You," he stammered. "What are you doing here?"

"I work here," she said in a mocking tone, daring him to challenge her, to call her out while she was at work.

"Hey, babe," a dark haired teenager wielding a camera said, slinging an arm around Erin's shoulders. She shrugged him off and flashed him a smile.

Tony scowled a dark scowl. He had, unknowingly, taken the protective father role over the past few days, and he didn't like the look of the web reporter at all.

"Peter, meet Erin." The boy smiled at her.

"My two _journalists_ , meet Mr Stark," Jameson said, with a pointed look at Tony, who glared back.

Everybody shook hands.

"You two are going to go for an interview with Captain America. Mr Stark will show you there," Jameson informed them. "I want the interview on my desk tonight, ready for print tomorrow. Think you can do that?"

Peter and Erin nodded.

"Come on guys. The transfer starts in half-an-hour, and we still have to get there," Tony said, itching to get out of the offices as soon as he could.

Peter bounded off into the lobby ahead of the two Avengers. Erin waved to Chrissie as she passed by her cubicle walking beside Tony, smiling hesitantly as they walked to the lobby, breezing past security on their way out.

Erin was still giving Tony a look that dared him to challenge her.

"We'll talk about this later," Tony whispered to her, reading the look very well.

"What are you going to do about it? Arrest me? I've been in cuffs more times than you know, what with my criminal record and all," Erin replied sardonically, which startled Tony, but he quickly tucked it beneath his cool and composed mask he often wore in public.

"No, but I will ground you for a month- I am your legal guardian after all. Have you got your suit?" he asked her.

"It's underneath my clothes- as uncomfortable as that sounds, I didn't feel like changing out of it in the derelict alleyway next to the building. It's just a prison transfer- will I even need it, though?"

"If I could tell you that I've learnt one thing while in my line of work, it's this: it's _always_ better to be safe rather than incredibly sorry."

 **~O~O~O~**

Once they were in the car, Tony called Steve to let him know what was going on.

"Hey, Steve, in a bizarre turn of events, you're going to be doing an interview with the Daily Bugle _journalists_ because I maybe threatened to have Jameson locked up and taken away by SHIELD."

There was a sharp intake of breath from Steve's end of the line, and Tony imagined he was counting to ten in his head due to the long pause before he spoke, his voice still angry but considerably calmer than what Tony had been expecting.

" _What_? Tony, what were you thinking?"

"That it would be good to lock up Jameson forever?" Tony suggested, adding a small half-laugh to the statement.

Then he heard the very tense- extremely thick- silence on the other end of the line and pictured Steve's possibly very angry face. Most matters involving Tony angered Steve although they had been getting along fractionally better since the introduction of Erin to the team. Erin had been good for everybody in some form, and mending the tension between Tony and Steve had led to a more efficient, happier group of dysfunctional superheroes. But Steve was ticked, and Tony understood that, which is why he also took a deep breath as he realised this before continuing.

"Look, you kind of have to take one for the team here, okay? And it might put you back in a good light." All trace of merriment in his voice had disappeared instantly, something Steve was clearly not expecting.

Steve sighed deeply, and Tony envisaged him pinching the bridge of his nose as he spoke.

"Okay. But you are so dead after the transfer."

 **~O~O~O~**

 **Let me know what you think! Constructive criticism, or even you telling me whether you enjoyed the chapter, will be much appreciated!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Ta-da! New chapter! Yay!**

 **~O~O~O~**

After a long drive through New York City, the car pulled up outside of the not-so-secret SHIELD facility. SHIELD had decided that one of the lower branches could operate as a high-end government facility that transported the high-risk prisoners between the jails. Today was a member of the Serpent Society- major nemeses of the Avengers and with many links to HYDRA. Cobra was the leader of the Society, making his containment a number one priority, and making Tony wish that he hadn't argued with Jameson. Word had got out that Captain America was leading the convoy, and the public had shown up in force- the Captain America supporters being far outnumbered by the Captain America haters. Erin felt a part of her chest sink watching the anger and hatred on their faces as they shouted their anger and disbelief at the remarkably stoic faced personnel behind the fence.

"Tough crowd," Peter said with his eyes already to his camera, focusing the lens on the crowd and snapping photos. The hordes of angry people that were bearing hand-made signs condemning Captain America converged on the car as it was entering the gates, slapping the windows to ensure that their message got through. Many of them tried to follow the car inside the gates but were pulled away by SHIELD personnel masquerading as security officers.

"I know. It's been like this since that incident a while ago. Civilians all hate him," Tony sighed.

He hated the fact that Steve was getting such a bad rap. Sure, they had disagreed on many things, but he respected the man and what he had done for the country, and this made him feel absolutely terrible.

"Some people don't," Erin piped up from where she had been sitting silently for the majority of the car trip. "The little girls at the orphanage adore him. They play superheroes even though Miss Hannah has banned it, and there is always a fight over who gets to be Captain America."

"So they play superheroes? Is it like the orphanage version of fight club?" Tony asked. Erin gave him a look as if to say 'that isn't the point I am trying to make right now' and looked over to Peter, almost silently pleading for him to say something that would spare her from Tony.

"At least they like him," Peter said, receiving her look and instantly understanding it. Another reason she liked her new workmate. "Anybody who isn't Jameson at the Bugle loves the Avengers. We know it's a hate paper, which is why we stay in our jobs and try to mellow the harsh words Jameson and the general public say about our superheroes- these people save us so why shouldn't we give them the courtesy of calling them heroes? Calling them something else is just plain rude."

"Like with Spiderman. That guy must have a tolerance that is sky-high. The way Jameson treats him is totally unfair. It's like Jameson is starting a hate campaign," Erin said. Peter looked uncomfortable- he was the main photographer of Spiderman so he must have felt some sort of comradery with the hero.

"Have you heard about the new chick on the Avengers team? Pixie? Total babe!" Peter said, leaning back in his seat as he changed the topic.

Tony clenched his jaw as Erin hid a shy smile behind her hand. Peter noticed Tony and grinned.

"Do you like Pixie, Mr Stark?" Peter asked curiously, tilting his head to the side as he studied the billionaire.

"She's alright. A little impulsive, but she is eighteen and still a kid after all, and she has a way of wrapping people around her little finger- a good superhero has to do that. Overall, she's almost perfect for the job."

"Will we be meeting her today?" Erin asked.

"That would be excellent. An exclusive is just what we need to get Jameson off Captain America's back."

Tony glanced at Erin, his face unsmiling. "Hopefully we won't be letting Pixie make her crime-fighting debut today," he said, staring out the window to indicate that the conversation was finished.

 **~O~O~O~**

Tony pulled up beside a long grey warehouse- almost identical to the hundred others they had passed- and got out. The warehouse loomed over the car, completely dwarfing it as men with guns jogged along the perimeter, from a distance looking like oversized ants with their stark black uniforms and their guns.

"Uh-oh," Tony said as a familiar figure appeared at the doors of one of the warehouses.

He grasped Erin's hand and pushed her away from the door, getting himself out instead. "Wait here," he instructed the pair, who both looked mildly confused.

Captain America walked over to the car, shield on his back and a scowl on his face. Tony shrank down as the usually calm and considerate captain got mad.

"Tony, what were you thinking? I need all my concentration for the transfer, not to be pestered by journalists!"

This was said with a meaningful glance at the car, ensuring that the occupants knew that they were being discussed. If only the good captain knew that the windows- despite being bulletproof- were not actually soundproof and the conversation had clearly made its way into the car.

"You won't believe who they sent," Tony said with a grin that did not make Steve feel any better whatsoever.

"Peter Parker," Peter said, getting out of the car and shaking his hand firmly, which surprised Steve in many ways- he did not expect the kid to have such a strong grip, nor did he expect the handshake.

Captain America shook it but was looking at the other figure closing the door to the car. This figure was distinctly feminine and reminded Steve of somebody- although he wasn't completely sure of who. The figure swept her dark hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear.

"Erin Harper," she said, shaking his hand, a small smirk on her face. He smiled at her warmly- his relief at her presence as well as the incredulity of the situation had him abandon formalities.

He noted how small her hand was in his.

Hawkeye swaggered over, his bow and arrows fastened firmly to his back and shoulders. His gun was holstered securely at his hip, and Erin could see Natasha hovering in the shadows behind him.

"Whoa!" he said, upon unexpectedly seeing Erin. "Hello everybody." He locked eyes with Erin, asking for the secret question he asked just from looking at her.

Erin gave him a small shake of her head, letting him know that she was currently a civilian and that Peter was unaware of who she was.

He grinned. _I can have fun with this,_ he thought. He loved to anger Steve- he respected the man, but Steve really made himself an obvious and very easy target. His shield was literally a target.

"Hey there, babe," he said to Erin, slinging an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close. "Want to go find somewhere quiet for you to 'interview' me?"

Captain America clenched his fists while simultaneously going bright red.

Erin- not wanting to break any type of cover she had with Peter- smiled up at Hawkeye but gave him daggers with her eyes. Captain America made a growling noise at the closeness of the pair. Tony steered him and Hawkeye away from Erin and began telling the pair off simultaneously.

Steve looked up at one point, saw Erin watching, blushed quite deeply and then went back to being told off.

"Funny- despite the fact you just met, he is so into you," Peter said to Erin offhandedly. "I thought men from his era weren't like that?"

This touched a nerve with Erin, who froze for a second as she analysed the situation and then considered what exactly she was about to do in response.

Steve had tried desperately to fit in with the modern world, but it was taking a lot of adjustment, a lot of perseverance, and a tonne of resilience. The people who said he was a man out of time were disappointingly correct, but they were also the people condemning him- the ones that didn't understand the adjustments and sacrifices that Steve had made for them, _for his country_ , and the world.

"Did I ask for your opinion?" Erin snapped, turning to look at him in disbelief. "At any given point in time during that conversation, did I ask for your opinion?"

Peter took a step back- raising his hands in a submissive gesture to let her know he didn't intend to offend. "What? No."

Steve heard this exchange while Tony was lecturing them about appropriate behaviour around men of their calibre, and couldn't help blushing as Erin defended him. As he watched her- completely ignoring Tony in the process- he saw a hint of a blush on her cheeks as she ran her fingers through her hair.

"Then shut up," Erin growled.

Hawkeye sniggered, then went into agent mode when a criminal was dragged out, cuffed to something that looked like a cross between a trolley and ladder, and very much sedated before being stored in the belly of one of the transporters in the convoy.

Tony grabbed Erin by the back of the shirt and herded her and Peter into the transport vehicle.

"Be nice to him," he said to Erin, who nodded.

"We will. If I miss anything, I'll make up or… never mind." She noticed Peter looking at her strangely and realised how blundered her attempted cover-up had been.

"Good luck," Tony sang as she strapped herself into the back of the transporter. The driver was in the front- she and Peter were in the back.

"Thanks." She realised she'd been thanking people a lot that day, and she didn't like it. It wasn't something she would usually do, but today the apologies were flowing off her tongue left, right and centre.

They climbed into the transporter and listened as it clunked during the start-up, the uneasy feeling in her stomach not settling down once as they left the compound- not even when Steve smiled at her, sat beside her and held her hand out of Peter's sight for the majority of the trip.

It was going to be a long ride.

 **~O~O~O~**

 **And that is the next chapter, potentially the last for a while. Uni started up again this week, and I've got a lot of homework (and assignments- it's only the first week back!) to do.**

 **I'll try to update as often as I can.**

 **Leave a review if you like it! Constructive criticism** ** _is_** **appreciated!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Hi guys! Here's another chapter that has been successfully decoded! I hope you're enjoying it so far! Leave a review if you like (or if you don't or can offer some suggestions- constructive criticism is cool).**

 **~O~O~O~**

"Coffee?" Steve offered the two Daily Bugle journalists the tray that he had been handed by Agent Quartermaine when the agent had clambered into the vehicle. The agent had then proceeded to radio in with Fury to check that everything was right before driving off, their vehicle in the middle of the convoy- in the third position.

Agent Quartermaine- the SHIELD agent who was driving- turned to the two superheroes and photographer halfway through the drive, a grin on his face as he somehow relaxed now that they had begun moving.

"Twenty-six blocks. This will be a walk in the park."

A burst of static hit the radio as somebody tried to call in. Quartermaine spun back around to see what was going on and who was attempting to communicate, but something beeped and the entire convoy stopped moving.

Then the first vehicle flipped over and crashed into the street.

 **~O~O~O~**

It was an odd feeling to have the transporter flipped over and land roof down. Erin thanked her lucky stars that seatbelts- especially with Steve in the car- were very much mandatory.

Quartermaine was slumped over the wheel, blood pouring from a wound to his head. The windshield was still clean and undamaged, and out on the street Erin could see people fighting. She knew that her transporter was the one that contained the member of the gang, and she knew that as soon as the Serpent Society found this out, she and everybody else in the transporter were as good as dead.

Erin quickly changed out of her work clothes into her super suit. She reached out to Quartermaine from what her seatbelt would allow, making solid contact before she healed him.

Peter and Steve were limp and unmoving in their seatbelts- she assumed they were both unconscious too. She leant forward to survey the scene before her, pressing her hand against Steve and essentially rebooting his brain to wake him up.

Outside, there was a sonic boom, throwing up debris, rocking the transporter and sending things flying. Hawkeye collided with the bulletproof windscreen, leaving large cracks in the glass and completely crushing the windscreen. Erin wondered what exactly was in his body armour.

He slid down the glass with a screech that would have been almost comical had it not been for the situation at hand. Quickly judging the angles he was placed at, Erin determined that several of his bones had definitely been broken.

Erin pulled Peter, Steve and Quartermaine out of the vehicle, cursing the weight of the three men. Steve was first to wake completely and, after checking that Erin was okay and that she was unharmed, was gone extremely quickly, getting the civilians and injured agents out of the wreckage before something exploded and killed them all.

Once she was sure that Peter and Quartermaine were in a relatively safe area, Erin rushed over to where Hawkeye slumped on the metal frame of the transporter. Something had cut his leg badly and he had begun to bleed all over the hood of the transporter. There was no way he would be going anywhere fast, and the pain was evidently enough to render him unconscious.

"C'mon, we need you awake," she whispered, feeling the power crawl down her arms to mingle with his skin. The wounds began to knit back together in front of her eyes, and bones realigned.

"Pixie!" Captain America yelled, a cry of pain being masked by his urgent tone. Erin saw right through it and turned to see Steve clutch his head in pain.

Hawkeye stirred and his eyes fluttered. Erin took this as a good sign, and left to let him wake up and begin fighting again.

Peter seemed to have woken up and moved himself further out of harm's way. Only Quartermaine's prone form lay in the alleyway, protected only by a couple of rubbish bins. Erin couldn't see Peter anymore, and hoped he'd made it to safety.

Erin sprinted over to Captain America, dodging a few bullets and angry Serpent Society members to find him in an alleyway.

"Steve, are you okay?" she asked.

She noticed the gaping wound on the side of his face. The serum had begun working on it, but not quickly enough, and Steve was bleeding quite profusely.

She reached up and touched it. Her fingertips lightly traced it, and it healed up, the skin knitting together and glowing internally for a brief second.

"Thanks," he said, his hand reaching up to hold her hand to his cheek.

Erin startled, but stayed where she was, smiling at him as he continued to stare at her.

Spiderman swung in and landed beside Erin, waving at her as a way of a greeting as they surveyed the damage and were surrounded by the gang members. Part of the street had caught fire somehow and acrid black smoke was billowing from the road. A transporter was alight and was making dangerous creaking sounds.

"Guys, my senses are telling me here is not a good place to stay," Spiderman told the pair.

Erin winced as she rubbed her arm. "Mine too," she agreed.

And that was when the transporter that was on fire exploded and the seemingly solid ground beneath them collapsed.

 **~O~O~O~**

The passengers from the city loop were safely off the train when it crashed through the station. All but three remained on board. The time that they were travelling meant that many people were at work instead of on the train, meaning that the station was virtually empty. Of the three remaining, one was the driver, the other two civilians.

The prison vehicle collapsed into a heap in the subway maintenance tunnel, remnants of the train on top of it. The tracks completely gave way to the transporter vehicle and the remains of the train hit the ground faster than the superheroes travelling with it.

Erin screamed as parts of the road fell with her- everything silent aside from the pieces of debris that collided with the sides of the tunnel they were falling down. She may have accelerated healing, but the pain that came with hitting solid concrete at almost terminal velocity was going to be bad.

An arm reached out and pulled her close to them, holding her waist with a grip that was strong yet gentle. And the scent- she recognised that scent. The touch seemed familiar too.

She opened her eyes to see Steve's bright blue eyes staring at her in concern.

He looked down at the ground, which was nearing them now as they fell through the air.

"This is going to hurt," he said, wincing. He drew her closer, tightening his grip as his hand covered her head and kept her face buried in his shoulder to protect her neck and her face from any damage the fall might cause.

He put his shield underneath their feet, bracing himself to take the full force of the impact while still holding Erin tightly to him. When they hit the ground with a bone-shattering jar, the shield protected them from the worst of it, sending chunks of concrete up into the air as the Vibranium absorbed most of the immediate damage.

A sickening crack as one of Erin's legs broke made her wince, the split second of crippling pain only brief before her body healed itself almost instantly. She grasped Steve's arm and held him in place as she healed any injury that he may have.

"Thanks Erin," he said, smiling at her gratefully. He still hadn't released his grip around her waist, and only seemed to realise this as she tested out her leg to see if she could place weight on it, hurriedly withdrawing his arm and steadying her.

"Thanks for saving me mid death fall," Erin replied with a wry grin, checking that both her mask and his were in place.

"Help!" a woman's pitiful cry filtered through the train wreckage. Spiderman was helping the civilians- the driver, a man and a woman- out of the wreckage, none of them looking all too pleased by his assistance. Erin supposed it was Jameson to blame for the reputation.

Steve and Erin jogged over to the wreckage, looking for anybody else who might be in the wreckage, but if there was anybody else, there was a very low chance they were still alive. Erin began healing the civilians after checking on Spiderman, who she got some very interesting thoughts from. She filed them away for later perusal as Steve cleared his throat from behind her.

"We should all stick together," Steve said, sliding his shield into place in his back. "The Avengers will have a better chance of finding us all if we remain together."

"Why should we listen to you, traitor?" the woman- whose face Erin was healing- spat. Erin stopped the torrent of spark, watching the woman glare at her as the minor pain returned. Erin glared back, and the woman backed off her offensive front, allowing Erin to continue healing her,

"I trust him. I want to be alive at the end of this fiasco, because I still have my whole life ahead of me. If you want that too, then I suggest you listen to what the Captain here has to say. He's had more experience at this than me," Erin said once she had finished, looking at Steve and smiling.

"You actually trust him?" the woman reprimanded contemptuously.

"I trust him with my life," Erin asserted. He looked at her appreciatively, and smiled ever so slightly.

 _Thanks_ , he mouthed at her. She nodded in reply.

Then the blast of orange energy hit Steve in the back. His unconscious form flew forwards into Erin, knocking her to the ground.

They had been found, but not by friends.

 **~O~O~O~**

 **So there we have the next chapter. I wanted to take this opportunity to reply to a review by** **Winry Blue because there seemed to be some confusion over when she was found by the Avengers and Macey's place in the story.**

 **I don't want to spoil, but there will be an appearance by aspects of Erin's previous life later in the story, which is why exactly what happened after she left the Home isn't told or explained. It will be- later on, I promise. I hope that helped.**


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11 is finally up! I'm so sorry guys, I'd meant to post this earlier, but I've been battling some mental demons for a while now and even working on a chapter was too hard. Hopefully this is the beginning of a more regular update cycle :)**

 **~O~O~O~**

The civilians screamed hysterically and cowered behind the three superheroes. Erin flicked her hand, and a green shimmer appeared in front of her and the civilians. She'd just recently learned how to make the force field out of her energy, and at the moment it took an intense amount of concentration to keep it in place. The screaming people didn't help and only served to make the shadowy figures at the end of the tunnel approach quicker.

Spiderman was trying to calm the uncontrollable citizens down.

"Right, there's nothing to panic about!" he shouted, pushing them back out of harm's way.

" _CAPTAIN AMERICA IS UNCONSCIOUS, AND WE ARE RELYING ON A TEENAGER AND A CRIMINAL TO SAVE US!_ " the man yelled back. "How is that not something to panic about?"

"Just shut up," Spiderman muttered, testing the strength of the force field with his fingertips and building a fort to protect the civilians out of the debris that had somehow made its way that far down the tunnel.

Erin, however, was trying to bring Steve back to consciousness. She pressed her head against his chest, listening intently. There was no heartbeat. His heart had stopped from the intensity of the electrical blast he had been hit with.

And at that very moment, Erin became extremely human. She forgot that she had powers, and that she could heal it, and that she was a superhero and was supposed to be the epitome of calm in situations. She was just worried for one of her closest friends- the one person who had been by her side since she had been found at Miss Hannah's.

"Steve!" she yelled, fighting back tears. A second blast of energy hit the force field. The green shimmer began fading as Erin's concentration was directed at something other than the field.

The green light hit the Avenger. He arched up and then relaxed a little. Erin pressed her ear to his chest a second time, feeling the strong heartbeat pulse beneath her fingers.

She checked his airways, making sure that the rise and fall of his chest wasn't an indication of another complication she needed to sort out. His airways were clear.

She slapped him across the face several time and kicked him several times. No response from him.

"Steve, wake up! We need you. _I need you_ ," she begged him. A blast of energy hit the shield. Erin knew that it would only hold one more blast from the unknown enemy.

 _The Serpent Society probably_ , she thought. _I mean, they just attacked us and they really want to kill us, so it makes sense._

She knelt down beside Steve and took his hand in hers, cradling his face in her other hand.

"Last resort," she said to nobody in particular, knowing that people weren't listening, nor did they care. And also that this only worked in movies.

She leant over him, and kissed him.

 **~O~O~O~**

His eyes flew open, and he saw Erin over him. He felt the press of her lips on his before she straightened up and sent out another bolt of green energy at the attackers, the bright light illuminating her beautiful features and causing her eyes to look like they sparkled, and in that moment everything spaced out, and there was only Erin.

He couldn't believe she'd kissed him. She was beautiful. She was young. She was smart. So why would she go for a guy like him? She smiled at him as he stared at her in shock.

Instead of getting up and dealing with the task at hand, he propped himself up on one elbow, and cupped her face in his hand, staring at her tenderly as she stared at him, shock parting her lips slightly as she tried to say something to him. He pulled her head down to his level and kissed her again, her body melting under his touch, her lips moving gently against his.

In the background a civilian screamed as orange bursts hit the shield she had made, bringing the surrounding world back into a sharp focus.

She pulled away from him, smiling. "I think that's enough kissing for one day, don't you?" she whispered breathlessly.

"Yes," he stammered, chuckling nervously. "I think we have a battle to win."

He shakily stood up, Erin supporting him as he leant heavily on her shoulder.

He threw his shield at the attackers with surprising force considering that he was injured. Even as Erin thought this, she noticed that her sparks had begun to heal him. The shield knocked the legs out from underneath one, knocking them unconscious as their head hit the concrete with a sickening thud. The civilians shrieked as three of the Serpent Society kept advancing, coming dangerously close to where their fort was.

A chunk of concrete lifted from above their head. The Avengers stood there, Thor and Tony holding the chunk up.

"Do you guys need help?" Tony asked.

"Civilians first," Erin said bluntly, without looking at him.

Steve echoed what she said, a small smile on his face.

Spiderman helped them up to the surface. Erin quickly conjured a shield around them as parts of the roof began collapsing.

"Take Captain America up next," Erin said.

"No, I'll stay down here," he said.

"No Steve, you'll go up there. You can barely stand without support. Go!" Erin ordered.

Spiderman helped Steve up. He followed the star-spangled superhero, motioning for Erin follow.

"Pixie, come on!" Tony yelled. Erin slowly backed away toward the hole in the road, firing off energy to keep the Serpents at bay, occasionally throwing punches and knocking them back a few steps.

A piece of the roof collapsed behind her, blocking the passage toward the hole

"Hello there, pretty girl," a menacing voice hissed from the dark.

Something latched onto her wrist, and an electrical current surged through her. Every single muscle tensed and contracted, excruciating pain rippling up and down her body.

She screamed in pain as a whip bit into her skin, drawing blood.

"Erin!" Steve bellowed, trying to jump back into the pit.

"No, Steve. You'll only endanger her life, and yours," Tony yelled as Hawkeye and Thor held Steve back from the pit.

Another bloodcurdling scream travelled through to them. They all recognised it to be Erin's, the sound tearing at their hearts.

"More than it is already," Tony corrected himself, wincing and staring helplessly at the hole in the road.

 **~O~O~O~**

"That's enough," the hiss said to the rest of the group, as Erin lay in a pool of blood.

She could feel her body begin to heal, her fingers twitching ever so slightly as she attempted to move out of her attackers way. Somebody hauled her up from the concrete, and she felt herself being dragged along the hard and rough ground of the tunnel before they handcuffed her wrists behind her back and duct taped her mouth shut. Erin felt a blindfold slip over her eyes before a needle slipped into her arm, dispelling its contents into her bloodstream.

"Quickly!" the hiss urged. Erin heard car doors open and close as she was thrown into the backseat of a car, doors being slammed and locked on both sides of her. She tried to fight the drug that was working its way through her system to give herself a chance to escape these people, but it was making her drowsy and she knew that she needed to force consciousness for as long as she possibly could.

"Take us to Hydra," the hiss ordered the driver.

 _Steve_ , Erin thought. _Help me, please_.

And that was when Erin lost consciousness.

 **~O~O~O~**

 **So, what did we think? Leave a review if you like it- feedback is appreciated!**


	12. Chapter 12

**Hey guys. I'm so sorry it's taken this long to release another chapter. I feel awful.**

 **Anyway, here it is. Let me know what you think about it by leaving a comment. Also, super excited about this chapter :)**

 **~O~O~O~**

Erin woke up in front of Avengers Tower. Her clothes were covered in blood, her hair lank and braided back, and she had a cut on her neck that would not heal. It was painful to touch, which is something she discovered almost immediately after she tried to. The people passing by glanced at her but did nothing. Her uniform was so covered in blood it was probably unrecognisable as her Pixie uniform.

She shakily stood up and pushed the doors open. She stumbled up to the elevator, ignoring the looks she received from many of the people in the lobby. She briefly forgot that there was a more private entrance for herself and the rest of the Avengers, and instead, she had used the extremely public one.

"JARVIS?" she called, her voice weak. "Can you take me to Tony?"

"Miss Harper. I am pleased to see your face again. Sir is on the common floor with the remaining Avengers. Would you like me to notify him of your arrival?"

"Yes please," Erin said, and then slid to the ground as the elevator began moving up, levels moving by quickly as the elevator went to the common floor.

The door opened and all the Avengers were standing in front of Erin, expressions of shock and horror on their faces as they took in what she looked like.

"Oh, God!" Clint exclaimed, rushing to the elevator and quickly checking Erin over.

"Tony!" Erin gasped as Clint placed pressure on a specific part of her that had not healed and the pain was sent rushing along her spine.

Tony came to the front of the group, Steve right behind him.

"Jesus! Get her in here."

Erin was carried to the couches on the common room floor, dazed and a little confused.

"Why all the fuss? I've only been gone a few hours."

"You mean a week? Where have you been?" Clint exclaimed, flinging all the pillows off and putting a blanket down to prevent the dirt and blood from getting on the couch.

Erin faltered. "I don't know," she whispered.

Steve set her down on the couch so that she was sitting upright.

"Humour me. Beat me in an arm wrestle," he ordered. He used his terrifying Captain America voice that meant Erin had no real option but to comply with him. She was able to resist it, which meant her body was slowly recuperating,

"No fair! You'd win!" she protested.

"Just do it," he said in his firm Captain America voice. Erin clasped hands with him and rested her elbow on the coffee table watching him scrutinously as her eyes flashed green at their skin contact. She noticed Tony wince when she left a grimy trail of blood and dirt on the pristine glass. She wondered what had happened to cause her to bleed as much as she had. Of course, it might not even be all _her_ blood.

"Go." Tony's voice pierced her thoughts.

Steve pushed gently against her arm, but even that was strong. Erin automatically felt her arm rise up to meet his force. Her muscles were somehow more defined than she remembered them being.

He let her push his arm down to the table level.

"You let me win," Erin objected, glaring at him.

"I did?" he asked, with a semi-sarcastic smile in her direction before he turned to have a low conversation with Tony.

He turned to Tony and said in a whisper: "She's been used for manual labour or some sort of work."

"I can hear you, you know," Erin said, rolling her eyes. "You may be talking quietly, but you aren't _that_ quiet. Plus I have the super good hearing."

"Are you sure you don't remember anything, Erin?" Tony asked.

"Only a little," Erin admitted softly. "Not a lot."

Clint came in with the first aid kit that he had retrieved from the Med Bay.

"Hey Clint," Erin whispered as he entered. She didn't see the look of shock on his face as she used his real name despite him never telling her, and he instead turned his attention to her injuries.

He began gently dabbing at the cut on her neck, which was still bleeding but slowly. She winced.

"Why haven't you healed it?" he asked her.

"I can't," she replied mournfully. "I can't heal it at all. Whatever happened to it, it's like my powers are being repressed."

"Why not?" Steve said, a dismayed look on his face.

Erin thought hard for a minute.

"Kryptonite!" she exclaimed.

"Dude, kryptonite is only off a movie. It isn't real," Clint said, rolling his eyes at her DC term.

"No, by kryptonite I mean a weakness."

"So you mean that you could have been weakened by something?" Tony said, stroking his chin thoughtfully.

"Pretty much," Erin affirmed, nodding.

"So what do you remember after you clashed with the Serpent Society?" Natasha asked.

"They dragged me into a car and said something about Hydra. What's Hydra?"

"It's a criminal organisation, designed to bring the superheroes down and to rule the world."

"Think hard. What else can you remember?" Steve pressed.

Erin probed deep into her memory, hoping she would somehow glimpse something that could help her remember.

"I remember… knives, and needles. And somebody dressed in white. And…"

Erin trailed off, her forehead wrinkling as she thought. It was almost as if the process of remembering physically hurt her.

"Skrulls," she said finally. "There were Skrulls wherever I was."

She suddenly had an urge to see the Dampner, the little device that had been implanted underneath her skin. A niggling at the back of her brain told her it was important, and she knew better than most people to follow her instincts. They had never let her down.

"Can I go into the lab? I think I've worked out what it is."

"After you take a shower," Steve ordered, grasping one arm gently and leading her up to her bedroom.

 **~O~O~O~**

"Are you sure we're secure here?" Erin asked. "I mean, what if they come back for me? What if I end up putting you all in danger? They could kill you all!"

"Relax. You're safe here," Steve assured her. "Trust me. We won't let anything happen to you.

"But –" Erin protested.

Steve pushed her up against the wall and leant down, staring at her intensely for a moment. The abrupt movement startled her into silence as she stared back at him, biting down on her bottom lip as she scanned his face. All sorts of emotions flickered across it. A few she recognised- fear, determination, anger- and some she didn't.

"Steve?" she whispered. "Are you-?"

Then he cupped her face in his hand and kissed her tentatively stopping her mid-word. She melted into his embrace, kissing him back just as softly as he was kissing her, their lips moving together in perfect synchronisation.

He broke away and looked at her, her breathing soft and rapid as she stared up at him through her long lashes. He was blushing slightly.

"I promise that while you're with me, I won't let them get you, okay?" He gently caressed her cheek and smiled as she leant into his touch.

Erin tried to say something, but he put a finger on her lips to hush her.

"Okay?" he asked.

Erin nodded. They kept walking.

 **~O~O~O~**

 **Leave a review if you like it!**


	13. Chapter 13

**Okay, hey guys! I'm so sorry I'm being so... erratic with these chapters. So much Uni work, so little time.**

 **Here is lucky thirteen! Hope you enjoy!**

 **~O~O~O~**

"Why did the Skrulls do that to me? I mean, it's not like I ever did anything to hurt them."

Steve sighed, opening the bedroom door for her. "The only good Skrull is a dead Skrull," he said. "They hate our people with a passion and would kill us without a moment's hesitation. Don't feel sorry for them, or question their motives- they are truly evil."

Erin didn't reply. She was too busy undoing her hair, trying to detangle it. She howled in frustration and held her hairbrush in one hand, hacking at her hair.

"Have a shower, and then meet us in the lab in half-an-hour," Steve said with a grin.

Erin gave him a smile, and then closed the door behind her.

She grabbed a change of clothes and stripped off for the shower, taking exceptional care not to touch any of her wounds. The familiar aches and twinges she had tuned out of after receiving beatings from Tally and Macey began to wash over her body, her cuts re-opening when she accidentally brushed her t-shirt over her stomach.

The sight of the puckered, dark red cuts that ran across her abdomen made her want to throw up, and she gingerly touched them. The pain made her hiss and recoil, the knowledge of the torture that was going to be the shower causing a lone tear to run down her cheek. Her body was that depleted of her healing energy that it managed to heal the deeper cuts but not completely. Blood still ran down her skin if she moved too quickly. Clint had handed her several vitamin pills to try and get her energy back up, and it gave her a little power to seal her residual cuts and cease majority of the bleeding.

She sobbed when she saw the blood wash off her skin, every drop of water burning her and feeling like tiny needles digging into her skin. The stream turned the water a rusty red colour, quickly swirling down the drain only to be followed by more blood. She didn't feel sufficiently clean until she'd washed her hair five times- trying hard to keep the soap out of her wounds- and scrubbed hard at every single bit of her skin that wasn't badly damaged.

 **~O~O~O~**

Erin eventually turned the shower off- ending the pain- and towelled herself down. It had refreshed her and slightly invigorated her, and she felt the fizzle of energy in the pit of her stomach before a warmth spread to the full length of her body, healing almost every cut and bruise. Except for her neck. That remained painful after the rest of her body felt restored. Which was extremely odd.

She struggled to get dressed- everything still felt tense and sore, although it was mainly just muscular aches. Erin stood before the full-length mirror in the opulent bathroom, examining every bit of her neck wound. Whatever and _whoever_ had made the cut had just missed the artery- they obviously hadn't wanted her dead.

She pressed two fingers to her neck on the sides of the clean slice in her neck, knowing that if she focused hard enough, no healing was too hard to complete, even if it left her drained.

"Heal," she whispered. Sparks spat at the wound, unable to penetrate the tissue. Something was preventing her from healing it completely.

Erin examined her neck closer. There, in the far edge, was a stone that looked like a dull blue-grey piece of glass.

Erin searched for tweezers. When she found them, she gently pulled at the stone, dislodging it from her skin and sealing it in a small resealable bag that she kept under her bathroom sink.

"Heal," she repeated, watching as the sparks this time entered the wound and began healing it. There must have been residual chemicals from the stone, as the wound scarred, but did not heal further. The scar was barely visible, but she knew it would remain with her for the rest of her life. A permanent reminder of what Hydra had done to her.

Checking the clock on the wall beside her bed, Erin realised she had about thirty seconds until she needed to meet her team down in the lab. She wrenched open the door and hurried out, clutching the small bag close to her chest and ran straight into the elevator.

Steve had been waiting outside the lab for her, hands dug into his jean pockets as he stared at the floor as if it were the most exciting thing in the world.

"Thought you had been assassinated in there or something," he remarked, straightening up as she approached. He gave her a gentle smile, which she returned.

Indescribable pain throbbed through her temple and she doubled over, unable to see or breathe from the intensity. Her body wasn't happy with her. It wanted food. It wanted to rest. And yet, she was still pushing it to the nth degree.

"Tony!" Steve yelled in a panic as Erin's knees buckled and she collapsed into his awaiting arms. He held her tightly to him as she let out a whimper, her face screwed up in pain.

Tony burst out of the lab, his repulsors out and whining as they built up a charge. "Where are they? Will I need to kill them? Is she hurt?" he shouted, aiming his repulsors toward the end of the corridor.

He stopped when he saw Erin lying on the cold linoleum clutched tightly to Steve's chest as she cried out in pain.

 **~O~O~O~**

Bruce was standing beside Tony and Steve as they lifted Erin up. The pain had seemed to dissipate slightly and she was able to open her eyes and look around. Steve stayed close to Erin, ready to catch her if she fell again. Bruce observed this with interest- the way the super soldier had been acting around Erin since she had moved into the Tower was worth noting.

"Oh God," Erin whispered, pressing her hand to her head to ward off the residual pain. "I did _not_ see that coming."

"Are you sure you don't want to get some rest?" Tony asked, scanning her with a screwdriver-looking device he had pulled from his pocket. It beeped, and he stowed it back in his pocket. "You should sleep- this is telling me that you have about half an hour before you're going to collapse out of sheer exhaustion."

"No. I want to work this out before it slips out of my mind," Erin replied, motioning that it was okay for both him and Steve to let her go.

They all entered the lab, a row of "alien" artefacts in clear containment units of the far wall of the lab. Erin perked up and walked straight to the Dampener. She grasped it firmly, gasping as the lights began to flash and brighten. She walked over to the nearest bench and placed it on the hardened steel as it span and whirred excitedly.

Erin took a deep breath. Everybody was looking at her like she had gone completely insane. "Show me what I need to know," she told the little sphere, which made a happy humming noise. It flashed three times and a holographic image was projected into the space in front of them.

A strange symbol Erin didn't recognised briefly flickered before a flurry of photos and words began taking on colours and shadows. A tone emanated from the orb, the sound carrying across the entire room as the projection zoomed in on a castle.

 _"Eighteen years ago, a baby was born to King Septimus and Queen Liliana, the rulers of the Skrull race. The baby was a little girl. The extraordinary thing about this baby was that unlike the rest of the children born to the Skrull race, she had been naturally conceived and naturally birthed. This made her very different to the other children. She was more powerful than all of them. There was celebrations for weeks after her birth."_

A tiny baby appeared in the hologram, lying next to two aliens with crowns on.

"Uh-oh," Tony said. He glancing sideways at Erin who stood, transfixed, by the orb.

The images changed to Earth and two other people nobody recognised.

 _"However, on the planet Earth, there was a young woman who was the lover of the Skrull commander of the defence force against Kree battle ships. She gave birth to a half-Skrull, half-human baby girl, who inherited tainted power due to her mixed blood- humans simply cannot contain the power that the Skrulls have within their body. The baby was born sick, and with the care of the Earth doctors, would have died within two years. The woman was scared, so she sent the baby girl with her husband to our planet, to save her and to be brought up with other children like her. The baby was called Marina."_

Tony was already doing the calculations in his head, getting Jarvis to store the information and run some crosschecks with the SHIELD database.

 _"The husband sold the baby to the royal family to be brought up as a servant. He did not care for the little girl – the child was only a burden to him. The mother died of heartbreak when he had told her of his decision. The father later died in battle, leaving Marina alone in the world. The king and queen took pity and took her in as their own, raising her with their own daughter. The two spent much time together until Marina's sickness worsened. There was nothing that any amount of medicine or scientific equipment could do to save her. However, there was something wrong with Marina, something that was not sickness- this was only to be discovered much later."_

"Erin?" Steve asked cautiously, noticing that Erin's hands were clenching the bench so hard that her knuckles were white. Tendrils of green pulsed around her fingertips as she continued to gaze at the image of the two children together.

 _"The doctors concluded that Marina's tainted powers were affecting her ability to keep herself alive, causing her internal organs to shut down. A brand new- and rather daring- treatment was introduced. It involved the princess having Marina's powers transferred to her. The king and queen were at first reluctant to risk both their children in the treatment, but after Marina's sickness worsened, they decided to take the risk."_

"Oh no," Bruce whispered, glancing at Erin.

 _"The treatment worked, of course, as all our medicines do, but in the course of the experimental surgery, Marina's own form was changed and became more Skrull. She lost all of her power. The princess, now controlling her own power and Marina's tainted powers, turned mostly human, the points of her ears the only sign she was Skrull. The princess's mother and father- unwilling to leave the throne to a human- immediately disowned the girl. They left her in New York- a city on Earth- in a girls' home."_

Steve had begun to piece it all together, and pulled Erin close to him, covering her hand with his. He noticed that her hand relaxed almost immediately under his. She continued to stare at the projection, at the sign that showed where the princess had been sent to, that had caused her no end of pain for her whole life.

 _"Marina was adopted by the King and Queen. When they passed, she became the queen of the Skrulls. With the rise of the Avengers last year, she took over the Skrull army, and launched an attack on Earth. She allied with Hydra, and in return, helped take down the X-Men."_

"No way," Tony said, pausing his calculations and the sorting through the SHIELD database. Steve shushed him, placing his hand on Erin's waist as she continued to watch the projection.

 _"Erin, you are the princess of the Skrulls. You can claim your throne from Marina. I am part of a special organisation that aims to usurp this false royal and place the rightful leader on the throne. In this device is a knowledge enhancing drug. It will inject a neuro-enhancer that will awaken our warriors' knowledge that is within you, so you can take down Marina. It will also open up the neural connections to speak our language. Good luck, Princess. I hope to meet you soon."_

The device shut down, then started ticking as a needle emerged and plunged itself into Erin's hand. She yelped as the drug entered her bloodstream, a burning sensation running up her arm as the device beeped angrily.

"So that was-" Bruce began.

The device exploded.

The four Avengers stumbled out of the lab, coughing from the acrid smoke that was quickly filling up the room.

Erin fell to her knees, spluttering hard as the burning sensation went to her heart.

"Steve!" she cried out frantically as she swayed, spots clouding her vision.

Steve's face swam in her vision, then everything went black.

 **~O~O~O~**

 **Let me know what you think by leaving a review!**


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